New Coyote Skin Hat

[Pappy]

Very nice, got to love them hats.
    Pappy

[swamp yeti]

Now I know what to do with my skin.That is very nice.

[primitivepaulette]

Thank you Swamp Yeti. I followed ehow only cut the legs off the skin from one side of the skin to the other and folded the excess skin over and stitched that to the front of a baseball cap with the brim removed. it feels very comfortable on.

Your fur looks very nice and clean and fluffy under the cool blade! Sure noticed that!

[Patches]

does ehouw show how to tan a hide while you leave the feet on?  I have been wondering how to do that.  Excellent hat! 

[primitivepaulette]

Thank you. I cut the coyotes legs right down the back and all the way down to the toes right through the middle of the thick pad.
Well, this isn't the pad here but an idea of what goes into tanning these properly.

It is a little time consuming to skin the toe bones out of the little animals but they look much better WITH them!


I have a lot of practice skinning these but when I first began I would cut my own skin fairly often! Just have to practice caution and use extreme patience!
I must enjoy doing this skinning thing is all I can say, seems kind of strange to me too as there weren't even any hunters in my family.. I have three older siblings, all brothers and they all think it's pretty gross, lol.. probably because it is a challenge to slip the skins from the carcasses with little to no damage, and then to try to preserve the skins so that the animals look like they're just sleeping is kind of an accomplishment.. they are all so beautiful.
this coyote was one of my favorite ones. So pretty. We have coyote hunters that hunt with dogs just down the street from me. The year before last or maybe it was even last year.. not sure which.. but they killed something like 57 of them.. crazy. I skinned something like 40 of them.. too many.. just overwhelmed with them! I only tanned several of those 40! most were frozen to begin with. Total horror! coyote SHOULD teach you to laugh at your own foolishness and hopefully learn from your mistakes!

[Patches]

That is a beautifually colored yote!  I seen some in November that were blond, but not as blond as that.  That is the lightest colored hide I have ever seen.  I seen one in October that was very dark, almost black.  I am actually going back to the area this weekend to see if I can call him or the blond coyotes in.  The farmer wants them gone, and I am wanting hides, so it works out good!  Thanks for posting the photos.

[richardzane]

 the legs won't be on the wrong side if they tied em under their chin!

[Patches]

I hope this doesn't sound like a stupid question.  When you skin the coyote do you slice the skin up the belly or work the skin down the body uncut?   I know for trapping you don't cut the belly, but I  did not know if that was what you did for tanning and making a hat.  I can't wait it make one of these!
 

[primitivepaulette]

It is easier to smoke them well/heavily, 'cased' but that isn't always easier to soften the furskins 'cased'. Nor  skinning! I guess it's all a matter of personal preference. Most wallhanging coyotes are left cased but when you make a hat you cut them open anyway. I cut it open right from the get go and seeing as I used some citric acid to pickle this one FIRST I didn't go all out crazy ensuring all kinds of smoke.I knew it was very open after staking it and pulling it and well messing with it until TOTALLY soft and dry.. takes FOREVER sometimes!. these folks that got this hat are citifolk pretty much and I really didn't want it to smell like total Jerky..they might not have been real happy.. and I heard from them just today and they are really thrilled and were comparing it to some other coyote they had professionally tanned..... so I just hung this one over the quilt rack and covered the whole thing and smoked it all for a couple of round cake pans full of punk.. it was quite a volume of smoke a couple of separate times.. so.. lots of smoke.. 'escapes'that way but it still works! I will most likely be getting another this weekend so if you like I can just give you a step by step of when I do it if you like?
Thank you.. I'm very glad to know that my work is helping fan some flames. That's great!

Richard!That's very clever! hahaha.. never gave that a thought! how they're supposed to be worn anyway!

[Patches]

A step by step would be great!  Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions about tanning hides.  I really do appeciate it.

[primitivepaulette]

 Be my pleasure. You certainly don't need a powerwasher but you may need a good degreaser! And fleshing them very well will be a huge help and well sometimes thinning them is necessary.. I think that all depends on the particular coyote.. this last hat I made came from a coyote that was REALLY heavily laden with fat.. It was a female..     well anyway I washed that skin at night because I wanted so to get past the fleshing and on to the next step and when I went to work on it there was just too much grease still remaining and even then there is STILL grease that is kind of like residual.. it's in there good and well that is tough to learn and before I got into washers and some pickles and other "STUFF" cornmeal was used.. I've even gone so far as to try white gas..well it doesn't really even WORK.. it just displaces the grease.. and then your skin smells like gas! so.. really I just do my very best to CLEAN Them up as best as I can and when you find grease on the middle of those LONG FLUFFY TAILS ? well you'll understand how discouraging that can be! Nice though to have a nice clean skin that has the fluff! It is also pretty difficult to get a skin to come out fluffy and soft and the hair too without a big tumbler with at least a 6' drop..but mine aren't too bad for backyard tanning! where there is a will there is a way! so I've just been doing what's been easy.. haha.. now you know I'm a liar cause tanning is anything but EASY! well  I just hope ya'll know how happy I am to find folks that really like this stuff and don't just think it's like totally gross!