I guess my question is, Will the furs be okay for 2-3 days if we skin them and roll them?

trapper7...were going to live in a dorm! we wont have a freezer. we will have them all skinned the day we catch them...but what to do wiht thema fter we skin them? thanks

can ya sell em in the round anywhere there local?
then you dont have to worry bout skinnin em at all.

I would worry about them air drying before you could flesh and stretch them. If you have some place to keep them cold it would help.

If you can keep them cold you should be ok for a couple of day's. If it's really cold out, I let then lay outside in the snow for a day or two. I prefer to skin coons after they have cooled down, and yotes as soon as I shot them.

good luck and like cath said, find a local buyer so you don't have to worry about it.

rent a small storage unit near campus and equip it with a freezer a smaller unit should only cost about 30 to 40 bucks a month you'll only need it for two maybe three months and a big used deep freeze find cheap for 50 to 75 bucks and your set plus you'll have a little extra storage room for trap supplys bait etc.

Thats what i was thinking playin4funami........But how many storage garages have electricty....Then you would have to pay for electricity.

i know most of the ones around here have an outlet in them lots of people store cars and such and hook up battery chargers,etc. I think its like 5 bucks a month extra for one with electricity. But your gonna have to get the yellow pages out and make some phone calls to all the differnt storage units in the area where your gonna need it and ask about what they offer. Never hurts to ask. Also might find a garage or shed someone might rent or let you use cheap,ask the people that are giving you permission to trap,most farms have at least one if not more old unused rundown sheds on them it wouldn't be much but then you don't need much.

If there is now place on campus to skin them, where are you going to store the dead animals until you can skin them? If you are taking them to the place you are going to skin on weekends to store why can't you skin the Mon-Wed ones when you go there? If you are storing on campus or near by that could be interesting also.
Also if you have good luck are you going to be able to skin a weeks worth of catches and set out a new line or upgrade the old line? If you are going to skin and freeze I would put some of the early Mon-Wed in the freezer whole and bring out Friday for Sat-Sunday skinning.

Bryce

bblwi, Im thinking we are going to have to get a storage garage, hopefully one with power like playin said.

why don't you just stretch and dry all your skins then? You won't need a freezer. As soon as you skin the furs, can't you just put them on a stretcher?

what temp do they need to be at on the stretcher?....does that matter? if so the only place they can be kept is the storage shed!

I would suggest going out and meeting a few local farmers. Tell them your dilemma and ask if you could work a few hours a week or days a month in exchange for a place to skin and prepare your furs. Or, I would guess there are many students living off campus - meet some of them and use their facilities. I trapped in college and used friends rental houses and my own my last year. I ran traps in the morning/slung dead critters on the front porch and hauled carcasses to the ditch. I had a big freezer in the basement and sold every weekend. - Being only an hour away from home - I'd guess you know some local kids already going there - get ahold of them and see if they have a freezer. I am too tight to pay 40 bucks a month for a storage shed.

Do you have a refrigerator? If you put fresh-skun fur in a refrigerator for several days, it shouldn't taint or spoil.

Besides, having a little fur in the frig won't hurt or harm your beer, it that's what botherin ya.

Whatcha gonna do when the dorm is full of fleas and ticks, and stinks like yote den.

heck some farmer might loan you a shed for trapping the "dang corn eatin coons'" off his property. a farmer I know has a feild 1/2 mile long that borders creek bottom he keeps asking me to trap them ALL,lol. Last year the first 30 or so rows from the edge didn't have a ear of corn in it. That guy,s offered me the use of anything on his place and always asks if there's anything I need everytime I see him. Shouldn't be a problem finding a farmer with coons eating their crop in the middle of Iowa.

Here is what I do. In the winter time I typicaly work 7 days a week, 12 hours a day at a refinery. I drive 1 hour each way to and from work. By the time I get off work, get home and eat supper, drive to my deer lease where I trap its about 8:30-9:00 at night and I am dog tired. I check all my traps and remake them as needed. I usually catch things several nights a week. I sell alot to a local taxidermist straight out of my truck but what he doesnt buy, I turn on the porch light and get to skinning. I have skinned until 2 am before and got up at 4:30 to get ready for work. I wont do that every night but usually it's after 11:00 before I am done. Only once have I froze 2 coyotes, a fox, 3 coons and 2 bobcats and defrosted them the next weekend off and skinned them. It seems like the fur shed off the animal quiet a bit during the defrosting and me handling it wet. All I can tell you is get a good light and get good at skinning and never give up!

Newboy where are you going to school at?

Both Creekman Coon and I are going to UNI.

Get a big cooler, keep it filled with a block of ice. Use a little dry ice if you can get it from the chemistry dept. Well... never mind the dry ice unless the cooler will be outside. CO2 can kill inside. Keep the furs cold in the cooler. I keep deer meat cold for a week that way.