Alum Tanning Rabbit Hides Part 1

I had at one point this past summer attempted to tan some of the rabbit hides that I have been collecting. That first attempt sadly did not work out and I had a ton of hair slippage. 

I found a seller on Amazon that had this bag of alum for 5.99 + shipping.

I decided that to avoid hair slippage I am going to make the pickling solution stronger.The first solution was made of 1 1/2 cups canning salt and 1 1/2 cups of alum. This time I am doubling it to make it stronger. So I filled my 5 gallon bucket with 3/4 water and added 3 cups of both salt & alum. 

There are 8 skins in this bucket, the rabbits were all between 5 and 6 months old. Since you can't really see there are blacks, chestnuts and white furs in there. I will let them set in this solution for 7 to 9 days, stirring 5 or 6 times a day. These skins have not been fleshed , they were puled right from the freezer and defrosted in the bucket.

At the end of this 7 to 9 days I will then pull them from this solution and start fleshing them. I really hope that by doubling the solution it will stop the hair from slipping. I so want this to go well as I have plans on making a nice rabbit ski throw for the couch :)