I just recently got asked AKA "volunteered" to flesh a longhorn bull hide in preparation for having it tanned. Has anyone ever undertaken such a task? And if so do you have any pointers or advice on how to proceed other than the obvious inclination to run screaming away from it as fast as I can? I'm more than familiar with fleshing all manner of fur bearer and even helped my brother flesh a wild hog hide once but a full grown longhorn bull sure seems like a Goliath of an undertaking.

Fleshing beam for starters.

Yeah I got the beam les lol. Just trying to get a handle on where to start. And wondering how much beer I'm gonna have to buy to keep enough help around to help me handle it. I'm sure it wieghs a ton

Really not all that hard begin at the neck and work the top edge then proceed towards the bottom trying to keep the fleshed material complet it helps pull it down, kind of like fleshing a beaver just work it down pulling the hide up as you proceed

Not really all that hard just awkward due to their size if you can do a beaver you can do a cow hide it just like doing 10/15 beaver hides all together

Start in the center, lol.

Pressure washer?

I've done many Buffalo with a flat table good sized kitchen and just an Ulu, not really to difficult but is time consuming, can't imagine doing one on a beam, you would be walking all over the hide and it's a nightmare to hold up, with the table it supports the hide and you can move in any direction you wish.

Good Luck !

I never thought about that grit! Thanks for the idea! I've fleshed a lot of beaver with an ulu style knife. Don't know why I didn't think of that and a table!

Do bull hides have a lot of fat on them?

Now I know Trapper Les is good at shootin the bull, not so much as scraping one.
Not trying to joke here but if you could try to contact Tom Oar from Mountain Men.
Tom and his wife Nancy are very nice folks and maybe able to help you.

Zim

Just like doing a 1200 pound beaver. A wide beam is better, start in the middle and keep working it around so you have weight pulling down on both sides of the beam as much as possible. Don't figure on pushing much, mostly sharp work. Depends on how clean it was skinned and your beam ability, but figure about 2 hours and 100 pounds of salt. Be careful about leaving the point of the beam in the same place, hair pulls awful easy on cattle, beam point can rub it right out.

At beef processing plants they just cover them with salt and fold them up. Ive also seen them put in large stock tank affairs with an arm that rotates on top of it. paddles on the arm extending down into the tank. the arm turns pretty slow and a heavy salt brine and hides are in the tank. after how ever long they get salted and folded. the brine deal is how darling international handles the hides they salvage off the cattle the dead wagon picks up. These hides are not fleshed but the Mexicans doing the skinning are experts. they are pretty well clean skinned.

Thanks for all the advice guys I really appreciate it. And I am planning on salting the hide. The man who owned the bull is wanting it done by the best tannery possible so I called moyles today and talked to them about it. They said it definitely needed to be fleshed and salted before shipping to them.

I have been at the hide tanning camp for the last few days,the women are doing up 4 or 5 caribou hides and 2 moose hides,all laced on frames and the flesh is scraped off with a tool like a frost scraper,only smaller,and the hair is scraped off with the same tool when the hide is semi dry.Keep the tools sharp and it goes good.
A moose hide is very large.Frame is made of peeled 6 inch spruce logs and laced on with 1\4 inch rope.Lace holes are about 4 inches apart.All are being brain tanned and smoked in the traditional manner.

I did an 800 lb steer hide last winter for a neighbor. I used a flat table like what Grit was talking about, and a sharp beaver knife. Took about three hours, and I shaved some of the heavier areas to a more uniform thickness. Sent it to Moyles and it came back beautiful. Made myself another job, now he wants to do a couple more this winter. Can't complain, he paid me well to do it. Have done quite a few deer skins on a beam, but your talking about a lot of weight to have to fight on a beam with a bull hide! Good luck.

Thanks again everybody for all the advice. It is much appreciated.

done several horse hides and buffalo not that hard really no worse than elk or deer just bigger. Get a piece of schedule 40 water pipe and use that over your regular fleshing beam or a smooth really smooth fence rail. One thing for sure have a super sharp knife and just take your time dont get worried its just bigger.

great read thanks for sharing

2X

Back in the day (1960's) I had two uncles that killed several old milk cows or steers & an occasional old bull every week. They were fast and everything was clean skinned & I mean nothing was on the hide when they finished. Once I learned the method I was able to clean skin deer without much lost time. I haven't done a deer for years and wonder if I could sill do it. We started with a cut like you would do on a beaver and starting in the middle they worked the hide off just like you would do a beaver except for splitting out the legs.