I have a real serious problem. My Beaver hides are not drying I have to keep them in a unheated pole building. Some of them have been in there for a couple of weeks and they are still soft and green. I heard mention on a earlier post about using Borax. Is this the same stuff you buy at walmart called twenty mule borax I think it's in a green box? If so what will it do and how do you apply it to a hide? I intend to send mine to the nafa auction. Thanks

HELP

Flatiron,

What's the temps out in your shed? Can you bring them inside to a garage or basement, into an area of around 60 degrees with a fan circulating the air? I've yet to put up a beaver, but my yotes won't dry in my shed now. It's too cold. When I brought them into the basement, they only took a few days.

20 Mule Borax is Borax. It's good stuff. Sprinkle some on the hide, and dust off the excess.

Jake

You need to have heat on them a fan would help but they need to be Inside. I do mine In the basement and It's around 60 degs and there finished In about 3 days.

If they been soft for 2 wks., they are probably no good now. hope for your sake they are. get your nose down close to the hide and see if they have any kind of apple or taint smell to them. They probably are real slick feeling also.

Forget the borax! If you can't do it right(meaning heat and DRY air)then sell your skins green.

4488 what is your real thoughts on borax? I don't like the stuff on anything I buy and have heard it is not especially good for the leather. Do you think that NAFA downgrades for the stuff on hides? I agree with 4488, know what your doing, and if you don't, start asking questions very quickly. Remember fellas, it takes warm air and moving air to dry hides correctly. Temps in the forties and fifties will never do. It is even hard to dry fur with a fan on the hide when the temps are in that range. Also if a pelt does not start to dry within a day of boarding it, you have problems.
A beaver should start to dry on the belly area in just a matter of 3-4 hrs. By the next day, they should start feeling dry to the touch in most areas. In the second day they should be mostly dry except for the thick areas and the ear area. by the 3 rd and 4th day they should be getting close to removal stage, unless you have left a little gristle on the hide. If that is the case, then it may take up to a wk. to dry.

Yeah, get them into the heat. Get a fan on them, but like Don said, you may have lost these.

except for beaver as i have not finished beaver heat is overrated, its the humidity ya have to work with, i have put up and gotten top price for many hundreds of cats, coyotes, coon and badger and never had a drop of heat, and the temps ranged from 45 above to 10 below, butit has to be dry in the building, and open front pole barns dont stay very dry, on the other hand one can dry a buch of fleshed coon in a very short time by putting out into the high winds for 18 hours but again it has to be dry and you have to be right on them the whole time, as far as borax goes if nafa docked for it then half the furs would be rejected, i use it on green early fall yotes myself but i know plenty who rub the entire yote pelt in it and put on stretcher fur out right off the beam, cats the same way, ive also watched fellows rub it into well fleshed skunk, coon, and possum pelts while on the stretcher every day until plumb dry, i dont see the need in my area but they seem to think they do, one other thing, if you use one of those new fangled gas wall heaters that require no venting, remember that in an average day many gallons of water is coming out of that heater, it can be a very bad situation in a fur shed as the air is so thick with water even you wont stay dry after a time.

Good points possum, but let me clarify (at least myself) when I say put heat on them. As you pointed out, humidity is the problem, and with the right kind of heat, plus a fan you reduce that problem.
Here in KY humidity is a big problem. Today it is 65 degrees here with rain hanging in the air. I have a fire in the stove, and the fan running to reduce the humidity and while it isn't very comfortable in the shed, my fur is staying dry and no mold is forming.
If I left it to the elements so to speak, that wouldn't be the case. Instead, like tobacco drying in the barn, the pelts that are dry or near dry would begin to absorb the moisture from the air and that would create a real problem.

Me to mark, we just put up 500 coon and I have heat and fans going today.

LOL, Don, I thought I was beating the system a bit by going to wood heat a few years back. I can't cut enough myself to keep me going through winter and wood is now a 60.00 a ric down here.
Without that heat, and without fans, I could see about 500 ruined coon in your place.
I have an Amish guy I sometimes buy from. It took me two years to convince him that the barn amongst the tobacco hanging just wasn't the place to put up his fur. After I rejected a couple of dozen of what would have been exceptional colored reds from this area he finally got the picture.