I put up my all my own fur. Stretched and dried. Know of a 14 kid that wants to learn. Anyway, mother was a bit concerned with dangers such as transmitting a disease from it. I never put any mind to that. Anyone ever heard of such?

Always possible when handling wildlife. But the basics of gloves and good sanitation are enough to keep you safe. If you must a face shield will protect from splashes.

But like you I really don't pay it much mind other than washing my hands pretty regularly.

But its not a bad idea to be knowledgeable on just what these critters can carry.

Wear rubber gloves to be on the safe side.

There are other hazards too. Make sure you floor stays dry and not greasy. I slipped while skinning a deer and this was the result

You can get a whole pile of crap you don’t want. Don’t they mention this in every trapping course? A lot of general trapping books too for that matter.
I try to use gloves and wash hands regularly. I’ve nicked myself through the glove before, no problems. But if you catch the wrong bugger or find out that you’re more susceptible to certain parasites, you’ll be sorry…lol
There’s also super thin cut resistant gloves but I kinda loose too much feel, sometimes I wear one on my left hand for added grip.

Teach him right. Wear rubber gloves and wash thoroughly when done for the day. Another thing I learned from my wife who is a chemical engineer and worked in the medical field for years, is to wash my hands while wearing gloves. Besides being clean, each time you wash your hands it is like you put on a new pair of gloves, thus it helps with preventing getting cut from slips. Its like playing Russian roulette, sooner or later you are going to get something you are going to regret. Plus, at the end of the day, you can quickly wash your hands and enjoy a meal.

Another tip..keep a jug of rubbing alcohol in the fur shed handy. If cut thru a glove I quickly get a splash on the wound. Cleans up tools as well

Ouch mine wasn't quite that bad I only got my thumb. Fleshing beaver when I was interrupted by my mother in law.

I knew a guy when I was a kid who got the bubonic plague from skinning coyotes. You could potentially get all sorts of things. Good enough idea to wear rubber gloves if you can stand to wear them. I hate wearing the dang things, only thing I usually wear them for is skinning wolves, everything else I usually do bare handed, the occasional really nasty coyote will get either rubber gloves or the ditch treatment.

Wash your hands thoroughly, especially before eating, or taking a chew, lighting a cigarette, or anything else that requires contact with your mouth.

Do as I say, and not as I do. I have skinned innumerable animals in the field, barehanded, and simply scrubbed my hands with snow when I was done. I chewed Copenhagen for years, and thought nothing of giving my thumb and finger a quick swipe on my pants to clean them of any chunks before taking a pinch while skinning. I try to be more careful these days, but I never got anything before.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calg...erinarian-disease-coyotes-dogs-1.5224864

A guy from Alberta or Saskatchewan died from this a couple years ago, remember his son talking about it on facebook. Got into his liver and there was nothing they could do.

https://www.gov.nl.ca/hunting-trapping-guide/2022-23/wildlife-diseases/
https://www.montanatrappers.org/furbearers/diseases.html
https://www.iloencyclopaedia.org/pa...ses-associated-with-hunting-and-trapping

All kinds of nasty but some basic prevention goes along ways.

This made me think of what we do for commercial fishing. I deal a lot with shrimp, oysters, crabs and fish. My hands get cut up all the time. Something I learned as a kid from the old timers and I still do is keep a bucket of bleach water handy. Throughout the day I dip my hands in the bleach water and it prevents a lot of infections. I bet something like that would be very helpful to have when cleaning a lot of animals. I don't know about you guys but my hands get tore up from being nicked with a knife blade, stickers, etc.

Everything in life has risk. Understand how much risk, how much risk you're will to take compared to the rewards and take reasonable steps to negate risks. As a society we have become somewhat sissies. Usually more risk more reward.
Death rate on Oregon trail was somewhere around one in ten. Most people today would freak out at an activity if it had that much of a risk at twisting an ankle or catching a cold.

Amen! I was just going to say that life is not a safe sport! Anything worth doing has risks. I believe that I am at less risk in the fur shed using reasonable precautions than I am sharing the road with the usual cast of characters on the road heading to the grocery store.

I keep a bottle of hand sanitizer handy.

A box of surgical / exam gloves is cheap insurance as is a can of raid spray for any fleas or ticks the critters may have .

Scarcoptic mange is another thing to watch out for even if it's just a small patch a good friend of mine contracted it and it took quite some time to overcome the affects of it , Jim would tell you it wasn't worth the price he got for that coyote .

He skinned it while wearing gloves and wore a apron and gauntlets then washed it , hung it to dry a little bit combed it out and while fleshing it , it was still dripping water which ran down his apron soaking his blue jeans from his knees down which that was all it took .

We always have bleach water available in the fur shed. I take empty plastic Joy dish washing soap bottles and pour a couple of inches of bleach in and fill it with water. There is always a couple of these on the counter by the skinning table. Clean up the table, knifes, hands and everything else as we go.

I wear gloves and safety glasses. If it is too slippery you can put them white gloves over them from Harbor freight.(Adc's idea)

You might want to know just what you may be exposed to. Doctors aren't always able to recognize the signs and symptoms of some zoonotic diseases.

I had a job where a couple folks contracted typhus from flying squirrel fleas. Typhus is so rare in developed nations that the first guy almost died before the docs figured out what antibiotic to put him on.

At least communicate to family or doctor that you are a trapper and to consider that source if you get a mystery illness.

Yep, it works great. Nitrile gloves with cheap cotton gloves over the top of them. Keeps all the nasty off your hands and increases your grip on greasy hides.

https://www.harborfreight.com/safet...ves-100-pack-large-light-blue-68497.html <-- these,

under these...
https://www.harborfreight.com/safety/gloves/string-knit-gloves-6-pair-60640.html

Skinning without gloves has helped me over come my BAD habit of
chewing my finger nails.



Just kidding, gloves are good thing.

As a kid I never gave it a thought but as I have aged I always wear nitrile gloves and keep alcohol on hand . I like ADC'S set up kinda goes with the orange dip worm he knows what he's talking about .

Kevlar glove with nitrile glove on my non knife hand. I wear a nitrile glove over the Kevlar glove to keep it clean. I've nicked my self too many times skinning critters and there is no faster way for pathogens to enter the body then then thru a cut. Also, I'm really careful on those coyote neck areas. I've had sprayed blood get into my mouth and eyes from those veins when they were cut.

What "Trapper Gunny" said.. You want a 5000ppm solution. If its good enough to sterilize a lab setting it's good enough for us. There is very little that will survive that solution.

I use nitrile gloves on some animals,keep some dettol on hand for cuts or washing hands,and bleach for cleaning tools and surfaces in the skinning shed.
Bleach water in a spray bottle is handy when brushing canines etc that could have dried fecies in the fur,especially wolves and coyotes.
If I had coon I would use the bleach spray on the fur also before brushing.Dampen the fur down well with the bleach water spray before brushing
Hydatid disease can be contracted if you breathe in dried fecies dust when brushing fur.

Used to work in a fur house and handled probably 10s of 1000s of animals. Got cut and stuck with the knives from time to time. Also rarely wore gloves. Sometimes the fur buyer would bring in cheese burgers and I would put down what I was skinning. Wipe the grease and blood off my hands with some paper towels and eat - never thought twice about it. In all that time I never got any thing. Would I do that nowadays- no way in the world.

When asked why I set my sandwich down on a dead beaver?.........because it's the cleanest place in the boat!

I stabed my finger one time skinning wolverine. My whole hand swelled up had to medivac to the hospital in Inuvik to go on iv. They finally just cut it open filled it up with iodine and it eventually got better. Common in Nunavut they call it seal finger.
Good tip on keeping Dettol handy Boco.

I hate getting a squirt in the face from an eyeball popping, but I am not about to wear a face shield.

I wear 9 mil gloves over cut resistant butcher gloves. I also wear a face shield to keep anything from hitting me in the eyes, mouth, etc.

I used to eat dirt as a kid to build my immune system....lol.

Must have worked as I skin bare-handed a lot...no problems...lol

we need pics lol

im right there with swamp wolf i skin bare handed all the time have cut myself many times over the years. i do wash my hands if i cut myself and go right back to skinning after a papertowel and elecrtical tape around it. never had any problems. i also never get sick other than maybe a runny nose.

with that said i wouldnt recommend bare hand skinning to a kid. in fact my 10 year old i make him wear gloves.

I wear nitrile gloves they are inexpensive for a box of 100. When it’s cold I have a bundle of cheap white cotton gloves that go on the rubber over those to help keep my fingers warm in my unheated garage.
Lot of good tips in this thread. Thoroughly wash out any cuts on your hands and bandage them up. Use a good antibacterial soap and also an antibacterial like neosporin on the cuts.
Keep your knife sharp too. I get less injuries from not trying as hard with sharp knives than forcing a dull knife to do the work.
Jim