Megan has done a nice job keeping up with tanning the sheep and rabbit hides.  She has read a lot about how to tan hides and there are many ideas out there.  Megan has tried several different ways.  Recently she read about how to preserve the rabbit feet and tail and it too went smoothly.  We have finally slaughtered one of our heifers for us. We are now eating our very own home grown beef!  But that also gave us a cow hide, and a decision  of what to do.  After talking with the guys we learned that there is no market for cow hides, there is no place that will process them, what everyone does is to just bury them in a hole with the entrails. O.K. so now what?  Megan was ready to bury ours, but then the guys all said what a big hide! what a thick hide! what a shame not to do something with it!  So Megan went on the internet and found a straight forward way to tan the hide, and we are off with another experiment.

Underside with the cow hair.

We’ve been told the only thing to do with a cow hide is to make a rug.  We’ll see.