Tanning and Range Management

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My primary learning focus this week is tanning a hides. I have never seen or done this process before so it was a significant learning experience. I started by soaking the salted hide, scraping, and tanning with eggs. As you can see in this picture, I was racking the hide to stretch out the fibers of the hide so that it would turn into a soft suede like material. I learned the major importance of moving quickly so that the hair on the hide would not slip. My host sells these hides at the Thermopolis Wool Festival and online. This was a long process and I worked on it all week. I learned to not give up and give it my all to ensure it came out well. There are many mistakes you can make along the way that could mess up the whole hide so I learned that it is important to read directions, listen carefully, and pay attention to all the details.

I also learned about a plant named Hyoscyamus niger or henbane. This plant is posionous to all livestock and humans so it is essential to pull them out before they begin flower and spread their seeds. I went around the whole pasture pulling all of this plant out of the ground to ensure it does not continue to spread. You can see in this picture I collected a whole bucket of it to be burned. I also learned how to remove a different type of fence. We did this so the cattle using this land in the winter can include this portion of the pasture. I also honed in my skills by using her Instagram to post things about my day. I figured out what her followers like to see more of and engage with. As you can see, one of the things I posted was of the pigs, where one of them was eating my shirt, which people found hilarious.

This week, I would like to challenge the idea of poisonous plants. I have found that it is very important to know the types of plants that are growing on the land you are using. This helps with nutrition, but also to know what poisonous plants are in the pasture. Some plants will poison your livestock, which could potentially kill them. I think an excellent way to prevent this would be either pulling it as I did or possibly researching the plant, as some plants are more poisonous during specific periods of their lifecycle. This would allow you to graze the land still if you were able to do it during that particular period. I think that it is vital that all ranches know what plants to look out for.

I have a lot of questions about hides. Through my week’s process of tanning the hide, I questioned different methods of doing this process. Many people do this process differently and this can cause many varying results. I want to understand if different end results are more profitable than others: different tanning agents and wood used in the smoking step cause different outcomes. I also want to know more about why it works. Big tanneries use chrome tanning, and I want to understand why they chose this method over the one I learned.

Learning about how to tan a hide is an incredible experience. I can use this as another way to make money from livestock, especially if they are already going to be slaughtered. Learning more about plants was very informative as I began to understand what plants are poisonous and how they affect livestock. Poisoning in livestock is no joke so I think it is essential for me to learn what to look out for and how to prevent this from happening. Social media is vital to a business, especially in these specific times, as you can reach more people than from email. I am learning how to gain followers and keep followers. This is important as it can create hot leads to grow your business. I really enjoyed learning about her business and it is excellent knowledge to understand if I choose to build a business one day.

Submitted by: Elizabeth Herman
Edits by: GrowinG Internship Team