First of all, what are you planning on doing with the hide once it is tanned? If it's something that you just want to hang up on the wall and have a nice soft hide to touch, I highly recommend sending the hide to a commercial tannery. I send all of my hides to a place in Michigan called The Wildlife Gallery
http://www.thewildlifegallery.com . They come back smelling great and are super soft to the touch, and is a soft flexible leather. Most taxidermists that do their own fleshing and tanning just rub a tanning oil on the hide once it has been fleshed and salted and then it is ready to put on a form once it has been dried and then re-hydrated. This method is great for doing mounts, but is not good if you just want a hide to hang on the wall or put on the floor. It will become dry and hard. If you go to the website I put the link to, they have everything you need from directions to prepare the hide to be sent to price lists and everything and they are very good at what they do. Some of their prices for elk are: $121 for a cape, $267 for Half, and $445 for a Life Size.
Here is a paragraph from their website about their tan:
"We use a syntan process that yields a far better result than any other method used in the industry to date. Our skins won’t deteriorate over time; they re-hydrate extremely quickly, and provide a great stretch.
Even more important to taxidermists is the fact that our skins won't shrink as they dry, assuring that detail work will stay right in place. Hair and fur colors are not tinted or lightened. The leather has a very pleasing aroma and the chemical makeup of our tan actually acts as a bug repellant. With all this being said about our tan, none of it would make a difference if we didn’t have a top notch staff.
From the receiving department to the shavers and all through our management team we work together towards one common goal… producing "the best taxidermy leather money can buy"."
