Hides

Anyone have any tips on how to toughen up a hide?

The mutts absolutely love working them, however we have one who will stretch out and rip a hide to peices first time he grabs the damn thing at times. I know some folks have used the same hide for years, we are lucky to get 30 seconds of work out of one before its torn to shreds for one specific dog.

Any tips are worth at least a shot, we've got basically all the hide we can pile up. At this rate, we are going through a complete hide in about 2-3 days of work, and I know there is a better way to do it, so let me hear it!

 

Try freezing the hide before you give it to the dog

 

The hide we have is tough as nails. Do you get fresh hide or pre-cured hide? We get the fresh hide, scrape as much of the fat off as possible and then just hang it outside in a lean-to where it won't get rained on until totally dried out. Takes a while and it smells just rank, but it comes out pretty tough. The dogs just love it. Costs about 50 Canadian for a full cows hide.

 

From your friendly neighborhood armor maker.

Cuir Bouilli, or "Boiled Leather" in English.

Two methods come to mind:

1) Make sure you are using leather that is at least 1/8" thick and dip it for 15 seconds to 1 minute in boiling water. The leather shrinks and hardens rather quickly.

2) Using 1/8" leather, dip it into water that is as hot as you can dip your hand into without swearing and leave in for about 1.5 to 2 minutes. It will dry slower, but be a bit more maleable.

 

this here is the best way i have found to do it.it toughens up real nice and quick.and it is idiot proof wich works for me.i like easy.

 

We have tons of fresh hide, the oldest is not but a few days old. We asked for some from some local guys, and word spread people wanted the shit they were simply burning, the garage is getting packed.

We have a few with all the hide scrapped completely off, and a few that have quite a bit of fat left on them. Most of the hide was frozen when we got it, the first night we used it it was stiff as a board, it seemed to tear just as easily.

I'll try boiling some tomarrow. I don't think hanging it out would do much good here, with windchill it normally hits between -15, -25 during the night, lucky to get to -5 during the day. With all the snow and moisture, I don't know how well it would dry out, probably be sitting in there till summer! LOL

Thanks everyone, anyone else has input, feel free to add it. We've got enough to experiment a few methods with!

 

Get some "Meat" salt, and cure it out.

Thats what I do.

 

The ones I ordered from Stillwater are really hard. I have only tried it out with the new pup, so I could not testify to the durability yet, but they seem pretty sturdy.

They were hard to cut with a razor knife.

 

Stillwater - i'ma chef by trade, and the last few months a couple of my cooks at work have had a bunch of extra critter meat, so i've been curing/dry aging/smoking a lot of cuts for fun while we've been slow.

what salts are you using on the hides? i'd be interested, as my broiler cook has a few rabbit, deer, fox, and a few other critter hides haning in his barn he said i could have

are you using reugular kosher salt, a salt/sugar combo, TCM, or a nitrate based cure?

 

Iv just got my hands on some fresh cow hide, i scraped the meat off covered in salt for a few days, knocked it of recovered in more salt to draw the moisture out and its very durable.

 

scrape all the fat off the hide, and tack it onto some plywood with nails, stretching it as far as you can.

cover it in coarse ground kosher salt.

take a nice smooth rock and after the salt has sat on the hide for about a week, work the salt into the hide with the rock.

scrape off the excess, and re-apply more dry salt.

after two weeks, it should work like a charm.

on a side note, i haven't had much trouble with the fur coming off as the hide is being worked.

this method has worked for me for the last two years...works great on deer hide.

edit - Rock - you still alive somewhere?

 

Do what stillwater says. I have some of his hides and they are pretty tuff. If the hide is hanging from a springpole I can't see the dog destroying it in 30 sec. Now if you are just giving them as a chew toy then yea I could see that. The stillwater hides I have are hard and durable.

 

How do you guys attach hides to the end of your spring/flirt pole securely while not cutting a hole in it that will rip? I have only used rope on the ends of mine.

 

Does anyone know how to get hide from places that are local to you? What types of places should I be looking? I'm in new Orleans, la.

 

put a little hole in the hide and tie a knot on the end of the rope thats how i do it. Also burn or shave the hair off the hide, if you're conditioning a dog i believe that little things like hair can make a dog sick when having a completly clean system free of parasites and bacteria.

 

Robber, sorry I dont have an answer for you, but I just want to bring this back up in hopes we can get an answer because I have the same problem. I just got some hide from Stillwater today ( and thank you very much!!!! My dogs LOVE IT!!!) and one of my female literally ripped through it in a matter of 4 min. Granted she was going to town on it!! But to have her go through it that fast, this is going to be one expensive way of getting them to work the spring pole.

I also drilled a hole through mine and then tied the rope and RIIIIIIIIP.

Also, please update us on how boiling your hides worked. thanks.