My Uncle Steve gave me a couple dozen squirrel tails and some bucktail from the great and powerful Illinois north a while back(quite a while back), that I put in the freezer. I never actually forgot about them, I just never could get everything together to get them cleaned and treated. I cleaned out the freezer a few weeks ago and decided it was time...way past time. For the last few weeks they've just been enjoying the natural freeze/thaw cycle of nature and taking in the views as they've hung in bags, soaking up salt. Non-iodized salt is pretty amazing stuff when it comes to dead animal parts. We had a few really warm days since I hung them up and i was expecting at least some rank funkiness, but there was none. They're all dry and relatively clean. I washed a few select tails today, and may experiment with some dying in the near future, but for now just used the fox squirrel as is.
A cranking wood furnace will dry anything out in a matter of minutes, but I did add some more salt just to make sure.
Some of these squirrelies must have been monsters. The biggest tail has hair that's almost 3 inches long.
I've got smallies on the brain, so some squirrley clousers were in order.
Cool. Steve would be proud!
ReplyDeleteMatt,
ReplyDeleteI use sguirrel a lot, but not my pets,(wild ones have adopted me, incredibly tame,) I pick up road kills. For birds, I dry after skinning and using salt and borax by placing the skins and wings in the oven on low overnight. If not done I do it longer. I have not done this with mammals but it should work. That belly fur mixed with like colored antron and back the same are favotite dubbings. like of all time. And the tail, their all time gift for us. You of all people will figure out inumerable useful flies with that material.
Gregg