want to use my horse hide

[Mararichi]

I'm as green as they come and need some help.

I've got horse stock and am going to have to put down an old mare this winter. She's almost 30 so she's seen a full life. I'm kinda sentimental in a strange way because I'd like to keep her hide and see it turn into a nice piece of equipment. I need practical advice. I'd like to send the hide off to someone who can turn it into rawhide and then find someone who can make some equipment for me. Time is not the object here. This mare is from some old bloodlines and she is one of the last living direct offspring of a famous horse. When she goes there won't be many left as she is one of the youngest by this horse. To me it would be an honor to know she still "lives" when I use the equipment on her daughters and their offspring. If I treat it right the equipment ought to outlast us all and wouldn't that be something?

If I can't find anyone willing, I'd still like to keep the hide until I can make the setup to do it myself. Is there a way to preserve/store the hide until I can find the time, place, and supplies? How soon should rawhide be used once the hide is cured? I don't want to waste my efforts and the old gal deserves to be treated well. Since I won't have the skill to really do a good job for quite some time, is there a rawhider that would take the hide and work with it?

Eventually I hope to manage this myself, but I'm afraid she's not going to hang around and wait for that to happen.

Thanks much!

Edited September 18, 2007 by Mararichi

[Johanna]

"Rawhide" is untanned leather. If you don't regularly skin animals, a bloody 30 square foot hide of a loved one may be distressing and upsetting to the people (horses?) that see it and know who it is. I'm not sure exactly what you had in mind to make from her hide, but rawhide isn't used for harnesses and reins anyway. Have you contacted any deer processing places or taxidermists with your request? Ask a butcher or slaughterhouse if they know any tanners who do custom work. I would expect this will cost quite a bit, and exceed what you could buy similar leather for at retail. I guess I tend to think of dogs and horses as friends, not meat and hides, so to me, it seems macabre.

Johanna

[Rod and Denise Nikkel]

Just some ideas for short term: Hides can safely be kept frozen before anything is done with them. Just fold it up and freeze it in a thick plastic bag. To thaw, put it in a barrel of water and keep changing the water daily. It will take a while to thaw that way depending on the ambient temperature but it won't start to go bad on the outside before the inside thaws. DO NOT salt the hide. That is standard procedure for hides to be used in making leather, but salted hides can apparently not be used for rawhide (though we have never heard an explanation of why).

If you search in the forum there are threads that describe a couple of ways of making rawhide. But since you are wanting this hide and not just a hide, I would suggest this one is not the one to experiment on.

Hides from different species have different characteristics. I would recommend that the person you get to work on this special hide have some experience with horse hide as well as other types of rawhide, so that you do end up with something worth the time and effort at the end of all your work.