Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Tanning a snake skin

I recently killed a large southern brown banded water snake that was eating all the fish in my little pond. In hindsight, I would have purchased a tanning kit for best results, but I went online and found much conflicting info on how to tan it. I have gotten no help from taxidermy forums yet, but I figured somebody here would know.

The skin came off very easily with almost no flesh, just a little catfish-like sinewy fat here and there. I scraped the hide and tacked it to a board, then applied antifreeze several times over a few days. The antifreeze seemd to be disolving a layer of the skin, so I thoroughly washed it with hand soap and water, dried, and applied salt to the inside and glycerin to the outside. After several days, I scraped off the salt and "broke" and scaled the skin quite easily, then applied a light coat of glycerin all over.

I now have a very beautiful, pliable, clean, dry, and tough skin, but just one problem. It mildly smells like a dog. Wanting to use it for a hat band, but I'd like to deoderize it. Any ideas? Denatured alcohol treatment? I know these snakes have musk glands, or it could be some remaining bacteria from the "tanning" process. It's not a very strong smell, but, for a hat band... you know. Thanks for any suggestions!

Try Frebreeze. I wouldn't recommend soaking it now that you have it "tanned."

I'm a taxidermist. If you had posted this earlier I would have be glad to advise you. There are commericial tans for snakes.

Ah - Febreeze! Excellent suggestion, Cecil! A light spray on both sides, I suppose. As I said, I would have used a commercial preparation in hindsight, and I know I should have come here first, but I think I actually got pretty good results, considering. I realize now that antifreeze is a mistake (why do they tell you to use it?), and I think I rescued it by sudsing all that off of it and then salting/oiling it. It really seems like a nice skin now, except for the aforementioned mild doggie smell. Perhaps I hit a lucky combination. I also see that salt is not recommended for snake skins. Do you think it will rot, Cecil? It seems plenty dry.

Truthfully I'm not an expert on snakes but it sounds like you will be O.K. as long as you keep it dry. I've mounted two eastern diamondbacks for a customer and have a 6 foot diamond back skin I tanned on the wall. I simply went with a commercial tan solution but it's been so long ago I don't remember the details. Beautiful skins aren't they?

I have tanned rattlesnake skins with 2 parts antifreeze to 1 part glycerin mixture. Soak skin for about a week thin dry. It worked very well but probably not as well as the tanning kit for mentioned. Fyi the freebreeze works great on dogs that like to chase skunks. Our female healer is a critter gitter & can't seem to stay away from them, our male as learned his lesson and stays his distance. The freebreeze tones down the smell enough to stand to be around them.

Martin,

That is one showy banded! Looks like an unusually big one too.

Have you tried sunning the skin? Sun it on the inside during crisp dry weather only. You will never get all the odor out of it, but you can probably get it down to an acceptable level. Although the skin feels dry, the slightest amount of moisture can make it smell excessively.