If I skin a few bever and freeze the pelt. Could at some time down the road unfreeze them and clean up hide and then stretch them (pin) out to dry?

Snowy, That’s the way I do it due to my work schedule. Eric

Nice!!

Do you lay them flat as you can or just roll them up and freeze.

Thank you for the quick response.

If you got room in the freezer, it’s great! I rough skin, fold em in half folded skin to skin with a zip tie through the nose and into a plastic bag. The day before I want to skin & have a free board, I hang a couple of ‘em up from the zip tie. When it’s unrolled, it’s ready to flesh.

Beautiful Shakeyjake thanks for the instructions. I'm not set up for more then 3 beaver at a time so this will work great.

Fold in half skin to skin place in plastic bag. Thanks Sir.

yes, I do it every year

Last spring I had the same problem. Had a dozen in one haul and nowhere to store them. There was rough skinned beaver in the kitchen fridge for a couple days…lol. I bought a medium size freezer this summer. It’s nice. Put em up at your own leisure.
I also learned to set for how many I can handle. Hahaha

You betcha, we roll em tail to head then hook nose on nail and they unroll as they thaw,we will put em up when weather changes and trapping gets tougher.

I prefer to fold in half skin to skin, but not roll up if I’m going to get them out of freezer within a few weeks. They will always thaw over night when hung in front of fan that way.

When rolled up the face always seemed to dry out a bit before rest was thawed. My fan might cause that but im a big fan of using a fan when thawing. Also, whole hide thaws evenly rather than having thawed half waiting for still frozen half.

Agree with Trapset.

Yep, that makes a lot of sense. I usually just sell green, but I will put some up this year and I have always fought for space and time when boarding them.

I do it all the time.I prefer to put my beaver up in winter so I can frost scrape them which is easy to do if you have cold enough weather.
I skin and freeze the pelts rolled up in a plastic bag with the air squeezed out.
Then I write on the bag with a marker ,species date and a description like GD if fur is nice DM if damaged or PR if fur is poor.Ordinarys get no description.
This helps me if I have to put some up to meet a sale deadline and decide which I will ship to auction or which I can do later to tan

How to freeze the pelt depends on two factors - amount of space in your freezer and how long the pelt will be frozen.

For long term storage - 3 or more months - roll in a tight ball fur out. If you freeze flat with leather exposed you run the risk of freezer burn.

For short term storage, lay flat or as open as possible, it will thaw faster.

Thanks, Boco. I have read many times here of you guys' frost scraping and I would think it would be a lot easier than when scrapped fresh. Just my thinking even though I never have frost scrapped before.

Snowy I just fold and roll noes to tail. Eric

I don't do beaver but I have found that freezing coon and coyotes and then fleshing is actually easier and cleaner for me.

Bryce

What Bryce says for sure. I always freeze otter for that very reason. As far as beaver go I just wad them up into a ball and put them in a zip loc. If they're too big for a zip lock I use a kitchen garage sack and put 5-6 in there together. Pull them out later and they're thawed out in one and a half to two days. I'm putting them up most often while they're still very cold.

Try to make sure the fur is dry before you freeze them,preferably dry fur before skinning.

Yup, that’s why I love a fan while thawing anything. Moisture is no good!!