For those of you that have your own tumbler and tumble your own coyotes, is it worth it? Does it add value if you’re selling to a private buyer and if so , how much per pelt avg does it add ?

Your fur gets looked at by the buyer according to appearances. Tumbling makes fur look better, and does add value. It is however an unknown amount of value, just accept it, like knowing if you step off a cliff you're going to fall.

Tumblers really shine for dirty, muddy critters of any types.

Just don't tumble them too long, a fox farmer here did, the leather, skin was so broken and soft the fur buyer refused to buy them

I try to drum my fur when I turn it, the leather is still payable so there's little chance of cracked or torn leather. I like hard wood sawdust like maple with about 8 oz of borax , never use borax with a damp medium it will cause you're fur to singe or curl.

I use borax on the skin, I didn't know it would hurt the fur

Absolutely!

Seems I remember someone on trapperman uses borax to clean blood out of fur

Maybe its something about the moisture in the medium that causes the issue.

Me and my cousin use a homemade tumbler and it does a great job and improves the look of the fur.

Borax does work for removing blood, if the borax is dry and the blood is still mostly damp. You can pore the borax on the body area work in with a brush then brush out then repeat till blood is gone . Just don't let it dry it will cake and be difficult to remove. The reason I like the dry borax in the drum is it helps grease from the fur from the fleshing along with dirt and prevents slippage in arias prone to spoilage and the finished product comes out nice.

If you have dingy dirty or blood- pee stain drum with clean sawdust and some mineral oil, about 1 :5 gal bucket sawdust to 10 -12 ounce mineral oil. It will strip the grundge and give the fur a nice sheen. Sorry not mineral oil, mineral spirits or paint thinner.