How to Tan Rabbit Hides

Rabbit skins may be sold or simply kept in the house as decorative objects.

If you raise meat rabbits, the skins are a by-product of the slaughtering process. Tanning the rabbit skins preserves and allows them to be used for leather goods. Tanning rabbit skins is a straightforward process accomplished in your home. Though the tanning process takes time, it is largely time spent waiting, rather than working with the skins themselves.

Things You'll Need

• Rabbit pelts
• Sharp knife
• Bucket
• Pickling salt
• Alum
• Wooden spoon

Instructions

1. Lay the pelts out flat, trimming away and snarled edges of skin or any unsightly edges with a sharp knife. The pelts should lie flat without any twisting or bunching.

2. Rinse the rabbit pelts in cold water, cleaning away all the blood.

3. Soak the pelts in a bucket full of room temperature water.

4. Add 1 pound of salt to the water and 8 ounces of powder alum.

5. Stir the pelts thoroughly with a wooden spoon.

6. Allow the pelts to sit in the salt water for two days, stirring them two or three times a day.

7. Lift the pelts out of the water.

8. Peel away the sub-derma. The sub-derma is the layer of tissue underneath the skin, and it comes away easily after a soak in salt water. This removes the last of the meat and fat. If necessary, loosen the sub-derma from the skin with a sharp knife.

9. Add 1 pound of salt and 8 ounces of alum to the salt water solution remaining in the bucket.

10. Place the pelts back into the solution for a week, stirring twice a day.

11. Take the pelts out of the solution and wring them dry.

12. Rinse the pelts in cold water.

13. Lay the tanned pelts out flat in a sunny place to dry.

References

• New Mexico State University; Tanning Deer Hides and Small Fur Skins; Jon Boren, Terrell T. "Red" Baker, Brian J. Hurd, and Glenn Mason
• Mother Earth News; How to Tan a Hide; Anita Evangelista; October/November 2001
• Raising Meat Rabbits; Tanning Rabbit Hides; March 2011