# Don't borax!



## CaptainNorthwood (Jan 3, 2006)

Hey guys, 
At a fellow members request I wanted to let you new guys know that using borax or salt on your skins will make them worthless to a fur buyer. I took my furs over to a fur buyer this weekend and his exact words were "wow these look really nice, you definately take your time skinning and prepping the furs for sale, unfortunately it appears you've used salt or borax on the skins" I said "yep I did". He then said "unfortunately I can't buy them from you, you should not put anything on the leather when you dry it" Just a little heads up for anyone who may make the same mistake I did. Hope this saves someone some grief. Good thing I only had about a dozen furs. I also wanted to point out that he did say "for personal use its fine if you want to use borax or salt, and even if your gonna have it tanned it shouldn't be a issue, but on the fur buyers market it does make them unmarketable"


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## David G Duncan (Mar 26, 2000)

CN,

Thanks for the heads up!

Unfortunately I don't remember this issue coming up in the past on this forum. I wish I had thought to post something regarding this in the past.

Many years ago, when I was involved running the Zone # 3 trappers fur auction in Jackson, we would get some muskrats put up for sale by at least one young trapper each year had treated them with salt or boax, which saddly were never sold.

Possibly the strangest thing I believe I ever saw at the sale was some muskrats that were dried with the fur side out.

Checking with your fur buyer each year at the start of the season is a good thing to do, regarding how they want the fur put up, even for seasoned trappers. Because the needs of the market do change from time to time. Like the new practice of how to stretch mink tails. Now they want the tails stretched short and wide, tight up to next to the body, rather than long and thin, like we did in the past.


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## frostbite (Dec 22, 2004)

I used Borax on all my furs, exspecially around the head and bloody areas. I sold everything at the auction in Prudenville Saturday and got better money than I anticipated on all my furs. Since it was an auction maybe they didn't look closely enough at my furs. Maybe some buyers have different opinions, I'm not sure. Actually I think most fur buyers are looking for any excuse to buy furs at a cheap price. Captain, did you keep your furs or did you take what he offered? Did he not want them at all? Seems to me that Borax would only help the drying proccess and help keep furs from turning in the fleshy, bloody areas. Anyone else have the same problem that Captain Northwood had? This was my first year for putting fur up. I always sold it in the green, but I have always heard the old timers talk about useing 20 mule team borax on their fur.


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## CaptainNorthwood (Jan 3, 2006)

He didn't give me any money for them, all he gave me was confidence in knowing that I handled the furs the right way right up to the point where I put borax on them. He didn't tell me the reasoning behind not buying skins treated with borax, only that they wouldn't. Still not sure what the borax does to them to make them unsellable. At any rate it was a lesson learned. 



frostbite said:


> I used Borax on all my furs, exspecially around the head and bloody areas. I sold everything at the auction in Prudenville Saturday and got better money than I anticipated on all my furs. Since it was an auction maybe they didn't look closely enough at my furs. Maybe some buyers have different opinions, I'm not sure. Actually I think most fur buyers are looking for any excuse to buy furs at a cheap price. Captain, did you keep your furs or did you take what he offered? Did he not want them at all? Seems to me that Borax would only help the drying proccess and help keep furs from turning in the fleshy, bloody areas. Anyone else have the same problem that Captain Northwood had? This was my first year for putting fur up. I always sold it in the green, but I have always heard the old timers talk about useing 20 mule team borax on their fur.


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## Ebowhunter (Apr 5, 2000)

Borax is not good for the tanning process.

I'm not sure why the fur market does not like salt. For any taxidermy tans, salt is applied as soon as possible to a clean skin.


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## Joe R. (Jan 9, 2002)

I've used borax for years on canines and I've never had one rejected for using it. I don't use a lot of it though. Usually sprinkle it on the ear butts and under the arm pits. Rub it in a little and nock the excess off. Doing this I'm not sure how a buyer would ever know you were using it. I have a number of tanned hides on my wall that I used borax on and all of them are fine.

Captain,

Send me a pm with the name of the buyer you went to. I hope you didn't leave the hides with him, and brought them back home with you.

Joe


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## multibeard (Mar 3, 2002)

You should have seen the put up on fur when when the Ravenna sale first started. A few of the fox looked like they were stretched on a fence post. **** that just had the grease leveled out and not scraped down to the hide. I can tell you the put up of has gotten alot better over the last 25 years.

I think the reason the don't like salt on hides is they want to have control of any salting at the tannery. I have never seen any need to salt or borax any hide that was properly handled.


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## CaptainNorthwood (Jan 3, 2006)

Multi,
The guy told me my furs looked very good. I just didn't know any better as far as putting borax on them, just seemed like the right thing to do. Good thing I didn't do it with 500 furs eh!!!


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## FixedBlade (Oct 14, 2002)

Send them in and get them tanned. You can sell them yourself. The money you save on borax you can use to buy a trap. Next year you will be good to go. If you don't want them furs donate them to the Michigans Trappers Association. Maybe they can get them tanned, sell them and use the money towards the trapping defense fund. I donate almost all of my fur to the Michigan Trappers Association. They only ones I don't give them I am keeping for my own fur display.


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