Posted By: Thurman
Freezing an otter - 11/11/20 07:32 PM
Hey, might be a silly question but while closing up traps to wait for winter to come back I caught an otter, normally i frost scrape my hides and was wondering if I could cause singe to the fur if i froze the otter whole and waited till it cooled back down to skin and flesh? thanks for any help
Posted By: alaska viking
Re: Freezing an otter - 11/12/20 02:30 AM
I have frozen a few, both on the carcass and rough skinned, and rolled up.
Whether they "singed" or not seemed to depend more on the market than anything else.
Posted By: Boco
Re: Freezing an otter - 11/12/20 03:02 AM
I would skin it and freeze the skin until the weather is right for frostscraping.A frozen pelt will thaw much quicker than a carcass animal and take up way less room in your freezer.
You could run into a problem with singe depending on how you thaw out the carcass animal.If you thaw it slowly in a cold room about 10c you will be ok but it may take 3 or 4 days to thaw the carcass animal.
If you thaw the carcass animal at room temp there is a real risk of singing the fur.
Posted By: yukonjeff
Re: Freezing an otter - 11/12/20 07:53 AM
Clean skin it and be done with it. I would wager that alot of singe comes from guys grinding otter skins on boards.
Posted By: Thurman
Re: Freezing an otter - 11/12/20 05:44 PM
Thanks for the reply's, dont get a lot of otter here so wasnt exactly sure. I try and clean skin everything but find that frost scraping really reduces the need to violently flesh.
Posted By: martenpine
Re: Freezing an otter - 11/14/20 02:15 AM
It will depend on how you thaw