Tondeleo: After hearing from Doc and Marilyn about how to catch rabbits in homemade box traps, and how to make rabbit stew and rabbit burgers, I got curious as to what to they do with the skins. I have some gloves that are lined with rabbit fur, and I was wondering if the fur in my gloves was the by-product of a rural family's home made feast. In my mind I began to recall the various clothing items that I had seen with rabbit fur collars, and other accessories that were made from rabbit fur. I asked Doc and Marilyn about what a person needed to know about skinning rabbits and tanning their hides.
Doc: OK, Tondy. Once you kill the rabbit, you cut off his head and hang him up by his back legs so the blood can all drain out. Then you cut the skin off. You take a sharp knife and cut the skin around the back feet and then cut a line from the inside of the back legs to it's butthole. After that, just pull the skin down like you was pullin' off a sweatshirt from him. Like pullin' it down over his head if he still had one. Pull it off careful and you might need to use the knife to cut the skin loose here and there.
When you pull the skin off, it's inside out, just like your sweatshirt is when you pull it off. Leave it like that and throw it in a bucket of water while you're getting the rest of the meat ready to eat. Or play some music for about a hour. Then go back to the bucket and get the skin out and rinse it off with a hose or in your sink. Make sure you get all the blood off the skin or it'll leave brown stains on the leather that won't come out. Don't use no soap. If you do want to use soap...
Marilyn: I use my shampoo on it to get the blood off, and later I put conditioner on it to make the fur nice and soft. But you gotta rinse all the shampoo off if you use it.
Doc: When you're done getting the blood off, kind of squeeze the skin dry. It is still inside out...
Marilyn: And if you're too busy to finish right then, you can put it in the freezer till later. Get all the water out of them. and put them in a plastic container like what we buy ice cream in at the Wal Mart, that holds three or four skins... If you just throw 'em in the freezer, they get freezer burns and ain't no good.
Doc: When you're done cleanin' them, or if you got 'em outta the freezer and let them thaw out, then you commence to tan them. And you need a couple of drywall buckets...
Marilyn: I use a Soy Sauce bucket from behind the Chinese Restaurant up to 
Bryans Road where me an' Uncle Doc took you for your birthday. Remember, Tondy? You ate so much you almost puked...
Doc: OK, well could be a drywall bucket or a paint bucket or soy sauce bucket. We use whatever kind of 5 gallon buckets we got. Fill 'em about halfway with water. Then put in your tanning mix. We use a cup of picklin' salt or just rock salt from the hardware store. One cup of that. It's like 6 bucks for a big bag of it, maybe 20 pounds of it. Then add a cup of alum powder. You get that at the farm supply store. Stir it up.
Put your rabbit skins down in the bucket and' use a stick to poke them around and stir them up a little so they get good and wet. Let 'em stay in there for two days, and stir them up a couple times a day.
On the third day, pull 'em outta the water and' squeeze 'em dry an' rinse 'em out good with the hose. Then you scrape off the backsides of the skin to get off any fat or underskin what you can also peel off with your fingers. Start at its rear end and work your way forward. After that, rinse it off again.
Guess what you do now, Tondy? You put 'em in the second bucket you got, which you have mixed up the same solution as in the first one, and soak 'em there for a whole week. And you stir 'em two or three times a day as you remember to do it.
After a week they should be done. Here's how you test. Take a scrap off of one of your skins and boil it in a pot of water for a few minutes. If it's done, it'll stay soft. If it curls all up and gets rubbery, it ain't done. Put it back in the bucket for a couple of days and then it WILL be done. No doubt. It shouldn't change when it gets boiled.
When you're all done, pull 'em out of the bucket squeeze out all the water into the bucket. You can use the rest of the water as weed killer. I do, anyway.
Marilyn: I get out my hair dryer and my shampoo and conditioner. I wash them in shampoo and then put in some conditioner and rinse it out. I use the hair dryer just enough to dry the hair a little bit and brush it real soft with my hairbrush. But you can't get them too hot! Just dry the hair a little bit. Then you take them outside and hang them on a clothesline that's in the shade so they can dry out real slow. It might take a whole day for them to dry, Tondy.
Doc: When they's almost dry, I take 'em down and stretch them in every direction as hard as I can, a little bit at a time, until it gets soft and almost white. You gotta do this while it is still a little bit wet. I rub grease into them. It makes them soft.
That's about it. When you store them, put them in a cardboard or wooden box, not a plastic bag or plastic tub. They need to breath. Put a bar of woman soap, what smells pretty in it. It will keep bugs out and makes the fur smell better.
Marilyn: You can make anything you want outta rabbit fur. There's pillows, hats, vests, mittens, purses, coats, money bags, or whatever you like. I sew some rabbit skins together like a quilt and then just make whatever I want out of them. YOu make 'em into a bigga piece as you can, and then see what you can make outta them.
All you do is use what Mama used to call a whipstitch to hold them together. I got a rabbit coat up to the thrift shop for Christmas last year from my boyfriend, Gavin. He's sweet. Even uncle Doc likes him.
Doc: Yeah. He's ok. Kind of tall, but he's ok. I like him all right. Treats Marilyn good.
