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what do you want to do with it? for just drying it out, you need to get the crap off of it...one way to preserve deer hides is salt them, but thats so that they don't spoil, it also adds to keeping the hair from falling out....

I tan hides, but its alot of work....if you just want to dry the hide, you need to remove the membrane that is covering the skin....and any meat, fat, etc. that is on there....meat and fat will eventually rott.....

In order to get the membrane and other crap off, you need to scrape it, I use a commercial skin scraper and put them on a scraping board, used to prep hides for tanning....you can make one using and old file or knife...it can't be sharp, it just needs to have an edge to scrape the membrane off of the hide....i use a curved board that I drape the hide over and then push away from me, working the membrane off of the hide....and of course meat and fat....

if you want to tan the hide, it would be easier to send to someone to tan....you don't want a taxidermy tan, you want a skin tan that is soft/subtle....you can do it yourself, but its alot of work....after it stays in the tanning solution which is an acid and salt mixture, you pull it out and then have to 'break' the hide....breaking the hide pulls the leather apart and streches and works it back and forth to soften it up....tanning companies use a tumbler to do this.....

if you decide to dry it yourself, not tan it, scrape it, then nail it down to a piece of plywood with flesh side up.......it will be as stiff as the board when you take it off after drying....

 

i want to use it for a table cover or something like that.it is my first deer so i am getting it mounted and i wanted to dry the hide too.thanx for the help.if you have any more info i would like to hear it

 

if you want to use it for the things you say, then you want soft skin, and the only way to do that is to have it tanned....most places you send it to charge $8 - 10 per square foot, although i haven't looked in awhile since I do them myself....

do a search on the internet for 'hide tanning' or 'tanning a hide', it will give you alot of information...

 

the best tanning how to that I found was here http://www.predatormastersforums.com...;f=14;t=000578 this guy is a perfessional tanner that likes to help DIYers out. A real good site on predator hunting same site but just a general and can help with any problems you might encounter while tanning is the predatormastersforum they have a ton of information on that site reguarding hunting varmint/predators and ways to mount and preserve the animals hides skulls etc.

 

I will tell you an easy way to get the fat and meat off the hide. i use a pressure washer at about 1300 PSI. Wear hipboots because stuff flies everywhere. Its really quick. I've been messing around in taxidermy and did this with a few deer capes to prepare for mounting. There are several companies that sell kits to tan hides....McKenzie .......WASCO......Van-Dykes......look them up on the computer. Also look at this website www.taxidermy.net Good luck!