Fleshing Beaver

Ok Beaver guys, what gives? I just put up the Beaver I caught today and it took me 2 and a half hours carcass to boat. I have done a few and it seems to always take me that long. Do you use a sharp or a dull knife? What tips and secret do you have to share. I normally set for a couple a year for bait on my predator line. I have a few places I could get a few more than I normally do but not sure I want to. I would rather flesh 10 coyote than one Beaver. Help me out here.

You should use a knife so sharp you'd be afraid to shave with.

Carcass to board, about an hour for me. I use a Caribou fleshing knife.

clean skin them,took a bunch but i can do one in under an hour now.

about 1 hr. clean skinning with SHARP knife and boarded.

about 1 hr. clean skinning with SHARP knife and boarded.

I should just clean skin since I ended up using my Skinner to flesh since my coyote fleshing knife wouldn't touch it. I always start with intentions of clean but quit when I get to the legs. I thought it was my home made fleshing beam. I made a wood one years ago and just switched bto a PVC one and coyote are much easier on it so I figured Beaver would be. Guess I will invest in a sharp fleshing knife or just slow perfect clean skinning.

I but mine on the board then reskin. It doesn't take along time but would really like to learn to flesh beaver on a beam. But I am afraid of turning a $5 beaver into garbage I guess.

I skin and roll them up. pull them in the freezer for a couple of days , thaw and put them on the fleshing beam. seems to help set the fat.

I'll go along with "bvrtrpr", more realistic. I'd like to see some pictures of your boarded pelts?

I sold him fur just the other days, yeah he can skin and have a beaver finished boarded in 15 min. I have never seen someone process fur that fast and does a better job then me and I've been doing this lot longer than that youngster
Keep up the hard work young man
He can skin a beaver in like 4 min. Easy
Theres days in the spring I dropped beaver off at say 4pm he had 100 plus beaver on the floor, next day drop beaver of at noon all skun,

It gets a lot quicker after your first 400-500 beaver.

Beaver are tough to put up, expensive to tan, and sell for little

But one of my favorite pelts when finished

strike2x: If we were neighbors I would do the beavers you can do the coyotes.

x100

Everybody has this set time per Beaver.

The big ones take more time than the little ones.

The ones with a lot of damage, scars and rubs ,can be a little slower than the cleaner ones.

The ugly put ups take less time than the purtier put ups.

The guys set up with a good ergonomic system can do it faster than guys that are not set up so good.

Heck I got to get wood, start a fire, gas and start the Generator, find my reading glasses, kick the dog out of the way, before I even start skinning.

It's all in technique Greg. As you know, I always use a knife for all my fur and taxidermy fleshing, beav or otherwise. Never was worth a hoot with a push-knife, and I'd cut stuff up trying to get good. One of our neighbors, Tom J., is a push-knife guy. He can take a pelt fresh from the beaver and get it clean in the time it would take me to rough skin another one for him to flesh. He's had a bit of practice though, having trapped 500+ several different seasons. I don't want to flesh 500+ of any darn thing any more!!

This Is what I do.

I rough skin and It takes me about 4min. Get yourself a limb lopper and a hooked bladed box cutter.
Lop off all 4 feet then take the box cutter and cut from jaw to vent. Make one contentious cut around the base of the tail. Now you have made your opening cuts. This should have taken you about a minute.
Know you can start the skinning process.
I have a Russel Dexter boning knife and It does a perfect job . Long slices and don't worry about leaving to much fat or gristle behind.
It's going to take some practice to work around the legs. I like to take the hide In one hand and roll It up on my knuckles and that will expose the leg. Once the hide Is off you can hang It on the beam.

I start with the point of the beam dead center on the hide. This way you always have control of that hide. Then I fleash all the way around the hide. Most of the time I start about 6" In from the edge. Most of the edges you will be able to flesh just pushing with the dull edge of your knife. On the tail end you will have to use the sharp edge.

Once you have made the circuit you can drape the hide nose end over the point of the beam.Now there should be about a 6 " strip right down the middle. Most of this will have to be removed by the sharp edge.

I'm getting tired of typing I could have done at least 2 beaver In the time It took me to type this. LOL

Beav....that’s the best and easiest description of beaver fleshing I’ve seen yet.

After all the legs are removed , I like to insert the skinning knife into the leg between hide and meat and circle the cut. To me it helps the legs easier to skin. Like Beav, II use a replacement blade to do the cut from chin down. I rough skin but flesh all around the edges about 4 inches in. this leaves me a saddle to clean and it is easy with a sharp 600 Necker knife.

Beavers should never be about speed.If you have a bunch to do-speed will come with doing more and more.Don't always be in a rush to do everything-especially beavers-ya they are a lot of work-but they are probably the most satisfying in the end product.I skinned and fleshed over 1750 beavers one spring/summer-by myself.It actually turned me off skinning beavers for years.Now I just take my time and do them at my leisure-I love putting up beavers as long as I am not being rushed.

I have never tried Beav's way of doing it but it certainly sounds alright-going to give it a try.Have always done the centre strip down the back with a very sharp caribou knife and then used the dull knife to do the sides etc..Back when I was doing lots-I would skin ,flesh,and board 20 in an evening-that was a crap ton of work! Now if I flesh 10 in a day my hands go numb!

Ok, I know there are guys that are fast and most faster than me. Wouldn't you know I got 3 more Beaver today. 2 smaller and one bigger than yesterday. The big one was the biggest I have ever gotten. I wanted to weigh it but wouldn't you know the battery in my bathroom scale is dead. The biggest I ever got before was 58 pounds and just to guess I would say this one is 65 plus. Anyway, I decided to clean skin. I did one of the small ones in 1 hour 45 minutes. Mind you that is carcass to board, hung castor, processed carcass and cleaned up. That is 45 minutes better than yesterday but smaller beavr. The second one was 1 1/2 hour. Better job on clean skinning also. When I get home tonight I am going to take the monster Beaver. Hopefully I can finish him I 1 1/2 hours also. It takes me about 10 minutes just to nail it on board. Don't see how anyone can complete in 15 minutes but more power to ya....

IMO that is great improvement over your first posting times. With further practice your will most likely get better but I would not expect completion in 15 minutes anytime.

10 or 12 nails makes the nailing faster.

Impossible to get the proper put up/shape/sizing for marketing thru the auctions with 10 or 12 nails

Yea but its fast,lol.

Boco-I have seen your put up-you don't use 10 or 12 nails-LOL

I also find that like in the above mentioned post, that it is much easier to skin when I cut around the inside of the leg holes after removing the feet.

the more you do the faster you will get. ya aint gonna skin flesh and board your first beaver in 20 minutes.
it took me a couple hundred to get the hang of it. no i ain't fast but 6 minutes to rough skin and remove castor. 5 to flesh and 3 to board. i use an electric stapler. if using a stapler, remember one leg in one leg out .DON'T leave any staples in for the graders to find.

I rough skin and use a beam and knecker knife to flesh. I stop when it gets less than razor sharp and hit it with a stone a couple times. If your knife is sharp enough and with a bit of practice the knife does all the work. I’m by no means the fastest but I always get compliments on them from my buyer because I don’t rush it. I take my time, do it right, and in the end have a beautiful pelt.

But the sharper your knife and the more you skin the faster you’ll get. It’s one of those things that there is no simple fix where you can just buy a certain knife or board and be fast.

I was just funning MB.
That is the truest statement above,no matter what method you use,concentrate on your technique first,and by repetition,the speed will come.Even at the end of each season I am faster than doing the first few at the beginning.

I rarely skin and board beaver at the same time.I usually skin and freeze,then at a later date board.
I clean skin so there is no heavy fleshing to do.

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My guess is the bigger beaver will take more than 1 1/2 hour. Probably because A=PIr2 and C=2PIr

It could slow down if you hit a pocket of puss the size of a golfball.

Ok, so last night when I got home I decided to put up the big Beaver, he was 72 pounds, I bought a battery for my scale because I had to know. It took me 2 hours and 20 minutes this time but I realized that big Beaver have a lot more fat and are tougher than the little ones. Not to mention that I had to set the knife down to move him. Not like a small one that I can toss around with one hand. I clean skinned again but had a bit around tail to remove after. I heard mention of a Necker 600. Is this a good knife for me to purchase for the touch up and tough areas.? Also I like the tip about cutting around feet once removed. That is my slowest area so I don't make extra leg holes. I have one 5 legged Beaver LOL....Thanks for all the in put. Also I thought the purpose of nails was so air could get to both sides of pelt. Figured bstaples would be bad...Explain one leg up one leg down please.

ok, another question. I have 1 beam that is round and just picked up a flat beam. I use a Necker knife but rarely have I ever used the sharp side for any other critter. The question is; What works better for you a flat beam or a rounded beam? Straight edged knife or curved? (For Beaver) Oops that 2 questions.

Correct, nails should be used to allow air to both sides of the pelt. Although I have never used staples I believe the one leg in and one out refers to the staple legs overlapping the pelt edge, one leg in the pelt the other in wood only.

A beam that fits a curved fleshing knife. Although when clean skinning no beam is required, just a small pelt flesher to clean the pelt up once initial nailing is completed.

For your beam all you need to do is round over the edges. Start about 3" In from the edge and plane them down .
The curvature of your knife has little meaning If your using the knife correctly . Your knife blade should be just about flat to the hide. And your making side ways slicing motions. So only about 2" to 3" of your knife blade Is making contact with the hide.

If your matching the contour of your blade to the contour of your beam your knife would have to just about vertical. And that Isn't going to get It done.

That's correct. Unless you're pushing fat on a coon. Good points Beav.

Cutting around legs after feet are removed was an awesome time saving tip. Bet it saved me 5 minutes a leg and no extra holes. Had another smaller one to do today. Looks like I will get practiced up this year since I just got asked by a friend if I could try to take some off his property. Also have 3 new ponds that no one is on yet and I am having a lot of fun with it. Thanks for all the good I put on this topic. I think I got something out of every reply I read.

Fleshing beaver 20 minutes. Need a VERY sharp knife.

"Cutting around legs after feet are removed"
Would like to hear some detail about this. I've never heard of this method and wondering how this saves time?

Here is a tip for you guys having a tough time skinning over the stubs.
Instead of cutting the feet off at the joint with the loppers,cut them off about a half inch above the joint.Dont go too high,just a bit above the joint.
Try it-it makes a world of difference when skinning over the stubs.

That Is very good advice. I always cut above the joint It gets rid of that knob that you need to turn the hide over.

Once you learn to roll up the hide and expose the leg your going to speed up your skinning by a bunch.
Once that leg Is exposed It's one slice and you have the hide off the leg.

I had a a very well done video of this beaver put up but a member lost It or so he said.

Please tell me your talking about the back feet and not the front as well, the front feet are really easy.

I was actually having more Troy with the front legs. Seemed to end up with an oops on the front. Remember, I have only done a few dozen in my life, I am not a youngster anymore either. We are trying to teach an old dog new tricks here.