I only trap on my private property to help out my quail, rabbit, deer, turkey...

All of my catches have gone to a friend who skins, fleshes and dries for sale. For what the fur brings, I really think my preference is going to be doing tanned wall hangers for myself.

Is there any need to put the pelt on a stetcher after fleshing if I plan on tanning and breaking the hide at some point. I understand that it would need to be dried and rehydrated if I couldn't pickle and tan right away, but I wouldn't think that the stretching is required before the pickling / tanning / breaking.

Absolute newbie on ttrying this and any guidance is greatly appreciated.

If you can't get It done right away just freeze the hides.

I guess what I am asking is that there is no reason to put the hide on a stretcher after fleshing, correct?

If your going to start the tanning process immediately after you flesh no. Otherwise freeze or put on a stretcher. If bunched up and left to dry spots will go bad and slippage will occur

If you want to tan a fresh pelt,skin and freeze it.
When ready to tan it,take it out to thaw.When thawed give it a quick fleshing to take off the bigger stuff,then salt it all over on the flesh side rubbing salt into any folds in the skin,then fold the skin leather to leather,and roll it up.Place it on an angled board to drain.next day scrape off the salt,throw it over the beam and flesh it good,then re salt, roll up as before and leave for a couple days.
After a couple days Shake off the second application of salt,throw it on the beam again and flesh any spots missed previously.
The skin will now be in good shape for shaving down the thick parts of the hide at this stage.When that is done proceed with washing and degreasing the skin then pickle,tan, oil, and finish.

Why not just do a good job of fleshing the first time?

Salting makes getting the tough stuff off safe without damaging the hide.You dont have to push hard.
Salt sets the hair roots and coagulates the liquid fat making it easier to de grease.
Also preps it for shaving.
A good clean hide will not dirty up the pickle Keeping the pickle clean you can use it for many more skins.
If you frostscrape you can get a prime skin nice and smooth for tanning and also thin the thick parts (with zero stress on the hair/hair roots) all in one shot.
Some skins like rats and mink,especially when coming on to prime are easily damaged by overfleshing in the raw state,and should be tanned with the saddles on.Saddles can be removed safely after tanning and before finishing.

Appreciate the info gentlemen. Thank y'all.

Gunnleg what kind of pelts are you going to tan?

Looking to do Coyotes, cats, fox, otter, coons. Run of the mill items that I am land trapping on my property.

A buddy of mine takes the cats and fox, but for what they bring in $$$ wise, I think that I'd just as soon try my hand at making wall hangers for me and others.

I would forget about trying to " shave " down any leather. Do a good job the first time and forget about all the extra work. I've sent In 100s of hides to be tanned with out all the salting and fleshing and they turned out just fine.

He is talking about tanning the skin himself.
Of course the tannery does all that prep like shaving etc if you are shipping pelts to a tannery.
Of course you pay for that.
I can do a job as good or better than a commercial tannery at home at a fraction of the cost.
Shipping to a tannery is beneficial if you want fur tanned in bulk But for small skins or a few larger skins it can be done at home by hand as long as you do it correctly and dont get lazy and try to skip necessary steps..

For the numbers that I plan on going through (maybe 6 - 10) a year, sending them off doesn't make sense to me if I can do it myself.

Boco, I'm going to follow your suggestions above. I'm fairly passionate about trying it out and really think it's something that I'm going to enjoy working on. Going to start off with a red fox that I've been holding on to and I'll post up pics as I work through it. No plans to start immedietly, but I'll post back when I do.

Fox are easy to tan,just be careful scraping the early blue skins.
No shaving required on fox.

I've been YouTube heavy in watching how to skin out the feet. Any preference on your end for keeping them on a wallhanger versus not?

Same question on splitting the ear and removing the cartilage. Is there any upside or downside to not doing so?

I like to leave feet on wall hangers. People are always intrigued by the pads and claws.

Kinda feeling the same thing. I also like the idea of the challenge. Looks like patience and time mainly to do so.

Feet are left on for wall hangers,removed for garment use(in most cases,mountain man hats being one example of feet on garment)
To skin out feet,cut the bone below the wrist and separate the toe bones then skin out each toe separately and then trim the fat off the pads with pultry shears,then turn to dry,or salt for tanning as above.
For animals with a lot of meat in the ear butt,the ear should be turned(back skin of the ear separated from the cartilage and the ear turned inside out for drying),the cartilage can be left attached to the front of the ear and will tan.
After turning the ear,trim off any red meat around the butt with a knife or poultry shears.
Then dry or salt as above.
Hair can slip on the ears of some animals either during the drying process or the tanning process,if not turned.

Boco,

As usual, I appreciate the advice. I feel pretty confident on the feet skinning. Going to rewatch a couple of the ear splitting videos to make sure I don't goof it up too bad. Almost feels a little bit intimidating as I am just used to skinning most critters for meat purposes or taxidermy mounts (deer mainly) that I am getting done.

Awaiting a traingle blade to be delivered and then I'm going to thaw and get started. I will follow up with pics as I work through everything.

k snow - Thank you for the email attachments as well.

You are more than welcome.