How To Preserve A Snake In Alcohol

Near a calendar month ago, Nick harvested a couple of rattlesnakes with his bow. When nosotros kill an animal, information technology is very of import to us to use every bit much of that animal as possible. For our snakes that meant eating the meat and preserving the pare. I promised to write a follow upward mail detailing my effort to tan the rattlesnake hide and I am hither now to evangelize on that promise.

The Southern Pacific Rattlesnakes (Crotalus oreganus helleri) that we got were very nighttime in color with a gorgeous diamond pattern. I was admiring their hides equally I was field dressing them before long after the impale. I knew and then that I wanted to relieve and preserve the peel, so I was sure to be gentle with it. I also chose not to make whatsoever unnecessary cuts — my approach is to preserve the original structure of the animal as much as possible until I know what I want to practice with the hide. Bated from the pieces that had been pierced an arrow, I took the pare off the rattlesnake in a way that maintained its tubular shape (like a sock). I placed the skin sections in a separate ziplock handbag and tossed them in the cooler.

I knew that I wasn't ready to tan the rattlesnake skin correct abroad, so equally presently as I got dwelling house I took the ziplock containing the skins and rattles and placed them in the deep freezer.  I left them there for near three weeks. To defrost, I placed the ziplock bag (airtight tightly) in a pot of cool water and placed the pot in the fridge. I am pleased to report that the skins did non appear degraded from the freezing in the slightest.

There are a number of methods for tanning rattlesnake skin. After some enquiry, I chose to follow a method from The Tannery, Inc. I appreciated the simplicity in this technique. First, the ingredients were easy to find, nontoxic, and rather inexpensive — all you demand is booze (isopropyl or denatured)¹ and pure vegetable glycerin (both available from Amazon.com) and a sealable jar. 2d, the labor required was on the lower cease — no "breaking" necessary to achieve a soft, pliable hide.

All the tools and ingredients needed for tanning ophidian skin

The get-go step in the tanning process is fleshing. When you separate an brute's skin from its meat, at that place will be some flesh still adhered to the underside of the peel. This flesh needs to be scraped away and discarded. For this I found it was easiest to use a thin, smooth, somewhat tiresome blade. I wouldn't recommend going as dull every bit a butter pocketknife, simply a razor precipitous implement won't do either. I ended up used a small pocketknife from my kitchen that has seen sharper days.

Starting to mankind a large section of rattlesnake hide

Hold the bract at a 90 caste angle to the skin and button to scrape in brusque, quick strokes. I found that information technology does require a bit of downward force to really get a make clean scrape, so don't be scared to increase the force per unit area a bit if needed. Be thorough! Stretch the snake out with your other hand to make certain to make it all of the creases and make clean neatly effectually the edges. To mankind the hides of two snakes took me almost two hours. If I were to do it again I imagine I could get information technology all done in an hour to an hour and a half. At that place is a little bit of a learning curve.

I plant this line of flesh in the eye to be specially resistant to scraping. It may work better to carefully get your pocketknife underneath information technology and pare it abroad.

Be thorough when fleshing the serpent — don't forget the edges!

Subsequently fleshing, I rinsed the peel off, patted dry out, and placed the pieces in a jar total of equal parts alcohol and glycerin. It looked a bit like I had fabricated pickled ophidian. Mmm tasty. Be sure that all of the skin is submerged and the skin is gratis of air bubbling that would foreclose contact between the skin and the tanning solution. I kept the jar in the closet (away from calorie-free and curious cats) for ii 1/2 days, stirring the contents once or twice a solar day.

Rattlesnake skin just placed in tanning solution

Rattlesnake skin subsequently 2 ane/2 days in the tanning solution

The concluding steps involve removing the ophidian from the solution and rinsing it again with h2o, removing any additional membrane that you lot couldn't get in the showtime round of fleshing, and rubbing the flesh side with a fiddling more glycerin. This part took me merely about xx minutes.

Just a normal bathroom decoration… don't mind that.

Last, I hung the ophidian skins over a wide plastic coat hanger to dry over my bathtub while I went out for a weekend hunt. When I returned abode they were dry out and quite supple. I turned them within out so that the scales were facing outward (I completed the entire tanning process with flesh side out) and found that they look just every bit beautiful equally they did when I first saw them. I was happy to discover that they don't odour, either. I have read that it's normal to have shedding of the scales (which I already experience when I handle the hide), then I'll need to written report back on how this plays out over time.

The finished product

Even the underside, which receives considerably less attention, is very pretty!

Overall, I am extremely pleased with my new tanned rattlesnake peel. The method I used was relatively cheap to undertake, was very like shooting fish in a barrel for a novice tanner, and seems to produce bully results. Now I just have to decide what to make with the hide! Wallets are a neat option, but we both already have wallets that we actually like. We were thinking of using the larger snake to cover a wooden motion-picture show frame and the smaller serpent to brand a couple of serpent peel bracelets.

Practice you guys take any other crafty ideas? What would you practice with a rattlesnake peel?

Source: https://modern-hunters.com/tanning-rattlesnake-skin/

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