Different freezers do different things to fur/animals. I once froze up a mountain of muskrats, whole and made a deal with a guy to skin them up etc, and in one freezer full of rats, the rats, dried out and began to mummify, faces at least, the other freezers, rats were fine and skinned up no prob. Rats taken in the spring and skinned before Oct.
The nice thing was I didn't have to put all them rats!
Moral of the story, in some old freezers, freeze drying - freezer burn - was a problem. In such freezers you must bag skins, and you better bag your coyotes.
I hate rolling up skins, hate the concept of having to deal with rolled up skins, unless they are mine and I know they were in superb shape when they were froze. I bought the some skins off a guy that liked to over thaw his coyotes to skin, skin easier that way of course and then the skins were in poor shape, dark, carcassy, grey, black spots on skins. Those kind of skins should never be rolled up, and froze up
When rolling skins up and freezing, realize the that the center takes forever to freeze. You are rolling up the best insulation in the world into a little ball and needing the skin to freeze, centre of fur ball included. Nasty. Takes long time for centre to freeze as well as thaw. Nasty thing to do with marginal goods.
What I do with coyote skins is lay them flat in freezers, un-bagged. Fold wet-skin on wet-skin so skin does not dry out. I skin crotch and this keeps back from drying out. The skin freezes the quickest, "best management practice" for our industry. Put 6-8 coyotes on a layer and fill numerous freezers with a layer daily. Fold or scrunch faces up, legs.
Often I will throw skins outside for night, laying skins flat to cool, par-freeze or even freeze. Do so on tarps to keep skins from freezing down. Beware of mice! Froze outside, I will soften skins before packing them in freezer.
Coyotes freeze fastest this way, coyotes thaw fastest this way, a very good thing to do, just don't leave skins in a freezer all summer like this. If keeping long term, thaw flat skins halfway, so still par-froze and bag them.
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