saving a cow hide?

[canesisters]

A friend on my 'cow forum' is having to put down her much beloved heifer. She is heart broken over it - and because the heifer is beautifully and uniquely marked, she is considering saving the hide for a rug or wall hanging.
The only local guy she has been able to contact has given her a price of $800+.
I know NOTHING about this process and was just wondering if any of you happen to have any advise that I could pass along to her.

 

[Smart Red]

Perhaps you could do a search on how Native Americans preserved buffalo hides or taxidermy and hide preservation.

 

[baymule]

She should do an internet search for tannerys, call and get their advice on how to prepare the hide for shipment. I have done deer hides before, but I didn't get them soft. I stretched, pegged, scraped and salted the hides, then let them dry. I covered chair seats with them. If she can't find an affordable tannery, she could always dry it herself. I don't know how to set the hair, I wish her luck.

 

[Smart Red]

Have you found any suggestions yet, canesisters?

 

[canesisters]

She got the hide and horns back from the butcher. The hide is in a freezer until she can make some plans.
Everyone that she had to deal with were very kind to her and to her heifer. As horrible as the situation was, it was made immensely better by the kindness of everyone involved. I hope that if I ever find myself in that situation, I encounter folks like she did.

 

[Nyboy]

I would ask some hunters

 

[catjac1975]

A friend on my 'cow forum' is having to put down her much beloved heifer. She is heart broken over it - and because the heifer is beautifully and uniquely marked, she is considering saving the hide for a rug or wall hanging.
The only local guy she has been able to contact has given her a price of $800+.
I know NOTHING about this process and was just wondering if any of you happen to have any advise that I could pass along to her.

I am uninformed but, it sounds like a fair price to me.

 

[bobm]

Several years ago I butchered a very nice Hereford steer. My wife wanted to tan the hide so that we could have a throw hide in the family room. I checked around at several commercial tanneries and found the price to be 3-4 X + shipping to and from than the cost of an already tanned hide at a leather shop in Cal. Same goes for any other hide for farm animals. Reason being that the tanneries get all of their hides from slaughter houses in bulk, so they can do a huge batch for almost the same cost as the one custom hide.

 

[Nyboy]

Didn't @seedsaver have a thread here on tanning deer hide ?