Shout out to Sleepy Creek Tannery

For anyone who cares

I have switched tanners to Sleepy Creek Tannery out of Wellsburg, Iowa. They came with a couple of recommendations from a different thread. So far I have had beaver, skunk, fox, coyote, otter, and rabbits done. They have said delivery will be in 120 days and, so far, they have been right on. Our furs have come back in fine garment quality. I was so impressed with the fox, coyote, and rabbit in the last batch that I had to call and tell Ben, the owner, what a fine job they have been doing. The rabbits I sent were some snowshoe from this winter and two jack rabbits a buddy gave me about two years ago that have been in storage. They all came back in great shape.

One of the nicer points for those who are in the midwest and can ship SpeeDee Delivery is SC is a one day ship for most of IA, MN, ND, SD, and WI. The most I have spent in shipping a box to them was $15.

My hat's off to Ben and the people at Sleepy Creek. I, for one, could not be happier.

X2

I had a couple items to send to Sleepy Creek this spring. Decided instead to take a road trip drop things off myself. So the boy and I put the address in the GPS and took off. Pretty sure it cost me more for gas than it would have to just ship my hide. But then we wouldn't have gotten to see some of Iowa an a guided tour of the tannery..
Not huge place and I didn't take any pictures inside,, didn't want to give away any secrets lol!






Mac

They get all my business.

QUALITY! QUALITY! QUALITY!

I have had small furs done there and done very well. However I sent two bear hides and both were shaved too thin in spots. Be cautious sending larger rugs.
I agree they are timely and very nice folks to deal with.

Osky

I've had a bobcat, fox and coyote done by Ben, all three have been excellent.

They do Awesome work!

We have been using them for several years now. ADC recommended them a while back and have sent several batches of fur for tanning. They do a good job in a reasonable time frame.

That can be a common occurrence with any tannery; especially on fall bears skins.
The thing that causes really early coon to be nearly black (blue) are the hair roots being very close to the surface on the inside of a skin; same thing with bears. These roots then get shaved off in the fleshing/thinning process.

You might want to mention it to them, but overall I don't think it should cause someone to shy away from a particular tannery.

Wag, that was my point. They did very nice work on the smaller stuff, I would recommend them for that. The bear rug issues I did discuss with them and I am suggesting anyone sending a large rug make mention concerns to them maybe keep them on their toes a bit so to speak.

Osky

At least the tanneries down there shave the hides for you lol. The tannery here only tans. If you send them a hide with an inch of meat still on it, they will throw it in the tan as is. They don’t give a rip. They also give you your hide back unshaved after tanning. Not sure why a taxidermist would ever send their hides there when you still have to do all the prep, fleshing, thinning, and shaving.

I have always been very happy with them!

Mac, I got the tour too, even made a couple videos...

A civet that was done at Sleepy Creek it came out nice.

They did a good job on my beaver hides.