Rugs and Rugs!
There are lots of critters brought in each year to made into rugs. It is quite a lengthy process. The animals have to be properly skun out, fleshed of all fat and meat then salted down in our salt shed for several days. Next they are hung up to get about 85% of the water dried out of the hides. Then packed into a box and sent to our tannery out west. They do any unbelievable job of tanning! The hides come back nice and soft and shiny. Just like any piece of nice swede leather you may have seen. There is just one big difference. The hair is left on the hides!
These hides when mounted or made into rugs will out last my grandsons life time. And he is only 1 year old! The tanning is really, really good. I have lots of pieces of hides here you can look at. I'll even give you a piece! I've got a number of tanned animal skins hanging in the museum part of my shop that are many, many years old and look and feel just like the day I got them back from the tannery. But lets move on and show you some Rugs!
The most common animals brought in are bears! They come in all sizes!
Most people want the mouth open but a few also want the mouth closed.
You also get to choose the color you want for the felt border around the edges of the finished rug. Red and black is very popular for bears, but so is green and black, yellow and black, even black and black. I got all kinds of felt! The felt I use is heavy and is of the best quality I can get. Then the backing is sewn on. In fact there is so much sewing to do it really takes a lot of time. Very much of the sewing is down by hand. The backing is also a very high quality material which will last many, many years. In fact We've never had to replace a backing yet in all my years. Also all rugs come with hanging rings installed so you can hang them on a wall.
I personally guarantee you won't get a better sewing job because I have a woman do them for me that is the best seamstress there is! I have to brag a lot here because she belongs to me....
This wonderful woman just does the best job of sewing! This is my wife and she is good! You can see on the coyote foot above how nicely sewn the job is. Below is a bunch of Rugs that have been done. Enjoy the pictures!
Above is a about a six foot bear rug with open mouth and red and black border.
Below is a black wolf from Idaho. Wolves are very big, much, much bigger than the biggest coyote... They also have a very large head. The wolves shown below are over five feet long not including the tail!
Black Wolf Rug
I get lots of animals from out of state brought to my shop for taxidermy work. Many of my clients have know me for years. I have done lots of African Work as well.
White Wolf Rug
I know a real good wolf hunting guy out west if your interested.
Large Maine Coyote Rug
Raccoon Rug
The above are a few example pictures of rugs I do. I most certainly can't put a picture of every rug, deer head or other mount on this web site. I just plain do too many!
Be sure to read how my bear rugs are tanned!
