Ridgetop
Herd Master
We have had several of our sheepskins tanned. Since you have Merinos, they don't carry as much meat as some meat breeds so you can wait until they are older to slaughter. You have a couple choices. We have had our skins tanned from lamb anywhere from 5 months to 12 months old. One was a ram that we used for breeding and then had butchered. He was a beautiful gray and we had the hide tanned. At 12months there was no ram taint to the meat.
First option is at what age you want to eat the lambs. Much over 10-12 months old they become mutton. Still flavorful, but you have to vary your cooking method since they are not as tender as 6 months old lamb. Not really a problem with Instapot cooking thee days. A 0-12 months old lamb s almost full grown. If you want to wait that long with yur ram lambs, I would wether them around 2 months old. You can leave them with the ewes a little longer to help catch up. Growth slows on wethers compared to rams but you can avoid any ram problems and keep them with the flock as they grow out. This option will result in a larger hide with a longer, heavier coat of wool.
Second option is to slaughter at lamb age - 6-8 months or so. The lambs will be smaller, but the meat may be more tender. This age will result in a hide that is much smaller in size. The wool will not be as long and may be softer although I have not really noticed much difference in texture between the lambs and yearling ram we had done.
We are in California and no one does tanning in-state here due to laws restricting the chemical processes. We have to send our hides out of state through the people that hunters use for their trophy heads. We collect the fresh hides and salt the raw side with Kosher salt (no iodine). Then we roll them up and take them to the tanner to be sent out.
If you decide to tan your own, it is a really long, hard process. You need to salt the raw side first, and let it sit - this step takes a couple days, adding more salt to the raw side every so often. Then you flesh the hide by scraping all the fat and any meat, sinew, etc. off with special scraping instruments. I used to have a book on tanning and considered doing it ourselves years ago. There were several recipes to tan the hides with different caustic chemicals, one recipe even used battery acid! Old methods used urine! The new ways use different chemicals.
Before you decide to do this yourself, I would suggest that you make sure you can obtain the necessary chemicals and tanning tools. You can probably get most everything online, but the chemicals may not be able t be shipped to your location depending on local regulations. (We can't buy a lot of stuff here or have it shipped to California due to our strict laws.) You might want to check with a taxidermist to see if it would be easier to have the hides commercially tanned for you. Do this first so you are not caught with the raw hides, no chemicals to tan them yourself, or no one to tan them for you. This happened to a friend and by the time he found someone who could tan the hides (sometimes they have a wait list) the hide was rotting. It would be a shame to have this happen and waste the hides.
I had one done for each of our 5 children and they love them. Good luck. Post pix.
First option is at what age you want to eat the lambs. Much over 10-12 months old they become mutton. Still flavorful, but you have to vary your cooking method since they are not as tender as 6 months old lamb. Not really a problem with Instapot cooking thee days. A 0-12 months old lamb s almost full grown. If you want to wait that long with yur ram lambs, I would wether them around 2 months old. You can leave them with the ewes a little longer to help catch up. Growth slows on wethers compared to rams but you can avoid any ram problems and keep them with the flock as they grow out. This option will result in a larger hide with a longer, heavier coat of wool.
Second option is to slaughter at lamb age - 6-8 months or so. The lambs will be smaller, but the meat may be more tender. This age will result in a hide that is much smaller in size. The wool will not be as long and may be softer although I have not really noticed much difference in texture between the lambs and yearling ram we had done.
We are in California and no one does tanning in-state here due to laws restricting the chemical processes. We have to send our hides out of state through the people that hunters use for their trophy heads. We collect the fresh hides and salt the raw side with Kosher salt (no iodine). Then we roll them up and take them to the tanner to be sent out.
If you decide to tan your own, it is a really long, hard process. You need to salt the raw side first, and let it sit - this step takes a couple days, adding more salt to the raw side every so often. Then you flesh the hide by scraping all the fat and any meat, sinew, etc. off with special scraping instruments. I used to have a book on tanning and considered doing it ourselves years ago. There were several recipes to tan the hides with different caustic chemicals, one recipe even used battery acid! Old methods used urine! The new ways use different chemicals.
Before you decide to do this yourself, I would suggest that you make sure you can obtain the necessary chemicals and tanning tools. You can probably get most everything online, but the chemicals may not be able t be shipped to your location depending on local regulations. (We can't buy a lot of stuff here or have it shipped to California due to our strict laws.) You might want to check with a taxidermist to see if it would be easier to have the hides commercially tanned for you. Do this first so you are not caught with the raw hides, no chemicals to tan them yourself, or no one to tan them for you. This happened to a friend and by the time he found someone who could tan the hides (sometimes they have a wait list) the hide was rotting. It would be a shame to have this happen and waste the hides.
I had one done for each of our 5 children and they love them. Good luck. Post pix.
