GUIDE TO FIELD PREP YOUR TROPHY

 Skin the animal as soon as possible after the animal was killed. Preferably within 4 hours after it had been shot. A         golden rule is to hit the road towards the skinning facilty as soon as the photo's have been taken.

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1. Make sure that you get the correct instructions from the client before skinning process proceeds. This simple rule wil prevent a lot of trouble afterwards. Many trophy collecting hunters have had bad experiences at this point due to poor communication between the person responsible for skinning and the person giving the instructions. To a foreign hunter the meat is of no importance as that cannot be ruined as quickly as his trophy skin, his trophy parts are more important and should therefore be for youn as the outfitter and professional as well, as this is the part you make the most money off. Many times, I have seen that trophy care is neglected in preferance of meat and the trophy parts arebthrown into cold rooms and only adressed 

2. .Once everybody is clear of what the client wants, cape, full cape, half mount, back skin, rug mount or flat skin, skinning must begin.

3. Make sure no fat or meat residue stays on the skin (if this is left on the skin it will defiantly cause hair slip during the tanning process). See that the eyelids are not cut out and that the nose, lips, and ears are properly opened for the salt to penetrate. Finish the skinning process and refrain from putting the skin in a cold room overnight to finish the next day. This is one of the worst things you can do as this can cause hair to slip due to the fact the skin starts to decompose the moment the animal was killed.

4. Wash the skin with clean water and a disinfectant like Dettol or Savlon. Make sure all the blood is washed out of the fur (hair). A solution (brine) of 2kg of salt and 20 liters of water mixed well with 10ml of disinfectant should do the trick. The skin must not stay longer than 20 minutes in the brine solution. Take the skin out of the brine and drip dry it a bit over a wooden pole (5 to 10 minutes only). Once the skin was removed from the brine, the brine must be thrown away. Do not re-use this solution the next day, THROW IT AWAY.

5. Use iodized medium sea salt for your skins and not salt such as Bot salt as this salt also make the skin too hard to work with. The skin will not stretch properly and will not allow the taxidermist when mounted to get the detail out of the skin to produce excellent work. Bot salt and re-used salt is usually the culprit for red bacteria on the skins.

6. When salting the skin, the floor area must be prepared where the skin will be left for salt penetration. The floor must be thoroughly cleaned and disinfected before every hunt. The salt room or store floor must have a slight downward slope for all the skin fluids and water to drain away from the skin. First cover the area where the skin will be laid for salt penetration with a layer of 3 inches (75 mm) salt. This is necessary so that all the moisture in the skin can drain away from the skin. Then cover the skin with clean new salt about two inches thick. Make sure to rub the salt in all areas of the skin especially the facial area, ears, lips, nostrils, eyelids and the flap between the horns. Also make sure that where the cuts on the skin was made that it did not stick flesh on flesh. This can be prevented when salt is rubbed in these areas before the skin is covered with salt.

7. After three days the skin must be taken out of the salt, folded a couple of times and then opened again and hung over a wooden pole. There must be no metal parts touching the skin as the salt will make it rust. Rust marks on skin will ruin the skin as it is impossible to remove. Do not leave the skins in the salt for longer than three days as it can cause red heat and make the skins unworkably hard for the taxidermist to work with.

8. Once the skin is drying a bit a bug’s preventative poison such as Karba Dust must be strewn over the fur side as well as the facial area which is turned inside out. Bugs tend to enter in the cavities and will start to eat the fur away making the cape useless for taxidermy purposes.

9. The cape (skin) can now be folded and stored in a rat free area, preferably in a well-ventilated area away from any pets. Rats, mice and dogs love to eat the lips, nose and eye lids and can cause damage to the skin that is beyond repair.

10. Deliver to the taxidermist as soon as possible. Please note that during a busy season your taxidermist might not have enough space to dry the skins on your behalf.

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       Skull and horn field preparation for delivery to your taxidermist.

 

       Once the head of the animal is removed from the carcass the following rules should be adhered to.

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1. Do not damage the skull by sawing or cutting through it, leave that for the taxidermist.

2. Remove the jaw from the skull without cutting the bone.

3. Remove all access meat from the skull.

4. Remove the eyes from the skull and remove the brains from the head with a bended piece of wire. This is necessary especially when the hunter wants to make a European or African skull mount trophy. Any fat left on the skull will cause the skull to become greasy as bone is porous and the fat will ooze into the bone on hot days. This will have the negative effect that when the skull must be bleached it might be overdone causing the bone to disintegrate or become powdery making the skull unusable for any long-term preservation.

5. Do not boil the skull as persons usually overdo it when not professionally trained to do so. Most times when skulls are cleaned in the hunting area staff will lose the frontal bones which will make a European skull mount useless.

6. Throw Karba dust on the skull and store it away from the skin store as skulls attract bugs which will damage your skins.

   

 

Responsibility

 

Zululand Taxidermy and its staff take no responsibility for skins that have red heat (bacteria) or hard unworkable skin as we are not part of the process of field preparation and because red heat is caused by using the wrong salt type like botsalt or any salt that came from a saltpan etc. Use only grade 1 sea salt.  This is the Outfitter and the Clients responsibility. Zululand Taxidermy will not be held responsible whatsoever and whatever the cause of the damage was to the skin. Sometimes red heat will only be visible after the skin has dried completely or when the skin is going through the tanning processes.

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