I’m pretty much the same getting all the meat from around the end of the tail. One thing I’ve never believed in is putting them in the freezer – I live in a cold state and bugs can survive on animals all winter long and with the wind chills we get a freezer just ain’t gonna work.

Any squirrel tails I get are washed in a mix of 20 mule team borax and Dawn foaming dish soap. I brush against the hair to get the soap deep and rinse well! I use a comb and brush the hair out to the side and put them in borax to dry.

Clean materials are so much nicer to tie with!!! And I agree I don’t want any bugs to infest my materials, and even after I stuff goes through my cleaning it still goes in a quarantine box!!

I leave the bone in as I’ve had too many fall apart when I dyed them!!