Ah, didn't see the hide part, just the pork & venison part. I know you're supposed to rub a lot of salt on the inside of the hide before you store it in the freezer.. at least that's what my father always did. He'd get a 5lb bucket of kosher salt & rub it all on the inside of the hide, then roll it hair side out like a jelly roll, put it in a garbage bag, & then store in the freezer until it was time to send it to the tanner. He used a tanner in WY for his elk hides and they always came back soooooooo soft. But they were also dehaired and I think, if I had a cow hide, I'd wanna keep the hair on it, especially if it had a nice pattern. Does a cow hide show color patterns on the skin like the hair pattern? I know on rabbits sometimes they do, sometimes they don't (a black & white rabbit may have a white skin, or they may have a splotched skin).
*jealous!!* We were thinking of moving to TX earlier this year, but that fell through. That's good.. I would have made a lousy Texan.. sorry. But I was looking at around Garland.. hoping to find a small farm (2-3 acres) so I could raise piggies & chickens. Fresh pork = nomnomnom. Never heard of anyone getting sick from eating freshly slaughtered beef.. had it before, it just doesn't taste as good as aged IMO.
