Selling hides can add to your overall profit margin, so it pays to protect them.
In the leather trade, ‘hide’ refers to the skin of large animals such as cattle, whereas ‘skin’ refers to the skin of small stock.
If you wish to make some money out of selling hides, you will have to take care of your animals from the day they are born. A hide can easily be damaged by injuries caused by horns and fences, ticks, and poor handling and skinning practices.
This means you should dehorn the animals and herd them correctly; if they are frightened, they can run into barbed wire fences, which can tear the hide and cause severe injury. It also means not cutting the hides unnecessarily at skinning and following proper preservation practice.
With informal slaughtering, minimise stress and injury by stunning the animal in a convenient paddock where it has been grazing for some days. Then quickly cut the jugular to allow the carcass to bleed out. Slaughter it in the early morning or late evening when it is cool. This is more hygienic as far as meat preparation is concerned, and also helps prevent the hide from rotting. Do not slaughter in direct sunlight.
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