Quote:
Originally Posted by bill9044
I know the butcher in my town and the hide can't have any knife Knicks has to be very cleanly skinned or the money isn't there. Kinda like fur. His guy comes once a week. He also said that if it is under a certain amount of hides they charge him a pickup fee.
If I were you find your closest slaughter house a small operation. Talk to the owner maybe the hide guy will pick yours up at the same time.
Bill
|
And that's just to get a guy to buy raw hides.
Most slaughterhouses are practically giving them away, maybe getting a few bucks now and then.
As noted, it sometimes costs butchers to get rid of them.... one really needs to pay attention to that fact.
In other words, No money at that end.
The next step is tanning.
If you are paying to have this done, unless you get some serious volume happening, tanners are charging near retail prices for large hides. That results in very little room for profit to be able to obtain product at a wholesale price for retail sale.
In order to pay for tanning and have a margin to retail the product, you need to get some volume.... now it is a whole new ballgame.
Lots of heavy, dirty, smelly work.
I've sent containers of buffalo hides to be organically tanned in Germany. Research showed that this was the only way to make money, even after starting with almost free hides from a slaughterhouse. Those hides stayed Germany, was and probably still is a good market, especially if you have a real Indian over there to sell them.
Wasn't worth it to bring them back to North America. Too much competition from large tanneries.
The most money available in this raw hide to finished product business is in the tanning.
To do it yourself for profit is quite a business in itself, not really something to be done on the side except for as a hobby.