How to Get Thin Hide in Crimson Desert

TL;DR

Thin Hide drops from small mammals — foxes, baby deer, reindeer calves, weasels, raccoons, rabbits, rats, chipmunks, and hedgehogs.
You must skin the animal after killing it — the hide does not drop automatically.
Best farm spot: a clearing west of Hernand City, southwest of Grimnir’s Kuku Shop — a large herd of deer and baby deer spawns here at night.
Use the map Faction tab spawn reset trick to respawn animals instantly without fast-traveling.
Buy Thin Hide from any Tannery for 8 Copper each — stock of 4 per shop, restocking every 5 in-game days.
Equip the Goblin King’s Treasure Dagger for a 10% bonus hide chance on every skin.
Small farm animals like baby goats, baby sheep, and piglets cannot be skinned for Thin Hide even if they look small enough.
Raccoons along river routes are a reliable secondary source when baby deer are not available.

Thin Hide is one of the most consistently needed crafting materials in Crimson Desert. You need it for refining leather armor and accessories, for gifting to certain NPCs for Trust, and for various crafting recipes throughout the game. The good news is there are several ways to get it — hunting, buying, and farming with a spawn reset trick. This guide covers all of them so you never run short.

For more resource and crafting guides, check the full Crimson Desert guide hub.

Table of Contents

What Is Thin Hide Used For in Crimson Desert?

Thin Hide is a crafting material primarily used for refining and upgrading leather armor and jewelry at the blacksmith. Take it to any blacksmith in a town or city and select the Refinement option to upgrade your gear stats using Thin Hide as a base material. The higher you upgrade your leather gear, the more Thin Hide you need per reinforcement attempt, so demand builds up quickly over the course of the game.

Beyond refinement, Thin Hide is also used for:

Gifting to troll scholars at the Scholastone Research Institute — each gift of Thin Hide gives +10 Trust with a troll NPC, which can reward rare materials like Rubber, Mercury, or Brimstone at 100 Trust. This is covered in our guide on how to get Rubber.
Certain crafting recipes for tools and basic equipment throughout Hernand and Pailune.
Camp resource requirements for specific dispatch missions and upgrades.

For a broader breakdown of how reinforcement works and what materials are needed at each upgrade tier, our equipment reinforcement guide has the full details.

All Animals That Drop Thin Hide

Thin Hide comes exclusively from small mammals. Here is the full list of animals that drop it when skinned:

Baby Deer — most common and easiest to farm in large numbers
Fox — found in forests across Hernand and Pailune; the only small mammal that can be locked onto by default
Reindeer Calves — found in colder, northern regions
Weasel — found in woodland areas
Raccoon — found along rivers and in forests; often appear in small groups
Rabbit — common in open fields and forest edges
Rat — found near settlements and caves
Chipmunk — woodland areas across all regions
Hedgehog — forest undergrowth across Hernand and Pailune

A few important things to know about skinning small animals:

Foxes are the only small mammals you can lock onto by default. For all other small animals, you need to switch to Precision Targeting when using a bow. With melee weapons, you need to judge the distance manually since standard lock-on will not work.
Use special abilities for precision targeting. Skills like Blinding Flash Finisher or Meteor Kick are effective for hitting small targets cleanly. Regular basic attacks can miss or overshoot small animals at close range.
Do not confuse baby farm animals with wild small mammals. Baby goats, baby sheep, and piglets look small but cannot be skinned for Thin Hide. Calves (baby cows) give Short Hair Hide, not Thin Hide. Only wild small mammals listed above will work.

Method 1 – Hunt and Skin Small Mammals (Main Method)

This is the primary and most reliable way to build up Thin Hide fast. The key is knowing where large numbers of small animals spawn and using the spawn reset trick to keep the supply going.

get thin hides in crimson desert small mammals

Best Farming Spot – West of Hernand City

The single best location to farm Thin Hide is a large clearing west of Hernand City, southwest of Grimnir’s Kuku Shop. A big herd of deer and baby deer spawns in this clearing, especially during nighttime. Since baby deer drop Thin Hide and adult deer drop Short Hair Hide, you can collect both types simultaneously from the same location — which is useful if you need Short Hair Hide as well.

Here is how to run an efficient session at this spot:

Head to the clearing west of Hernand City during evening or nighttime hours — the herd is much larger after dark.
Kill and skin every baby deer you can reach. Do not skip the skinning step — the hide is not in your inventory until you skin the body.
Once the herd is cleared, trigger the spawn reset (see below) to bring them back immediately.
Repeat the cycle as many times as needed.

Secondary Farming Route – Raccoons Along Rivers

If baby deer are scarce or you want a change of location, raccoons are your next best option. They appear in small groups along rivers and near forest edges throughout Hernand and Pailune. Starting from Howling Hill Camp and following the rivers north gives you a reliable route that covers multiple raccoon spawn points in a single run.

Other Good Locations

Woodland areas in Hernand and Pailune — foxes and baby deer both roam here. Since foxes can be locked onto, they are easier to hunt than other small animals and appear consistently in wooded terrain.
South of Varnia, in Traders Expanse — community players have reported consistent Thin Hide drops from small animals in this northern area, particularly if you are already in the region for other quests.
Forests in the Crimson Desert region — reindeer calves and other small mammals appear here if you are working in the desert zone.

How to Reset Animal Spawns Instantly

This trick is the most important thing to know for fast Thin Hide farming. Instead of waiting for animals to respawn naturally or fast-traveling to reset the zone, you can force an immediate respawn using the map menu. Here is how:

Make sure “View 3D Stronghold Details on the Map” is turned on. Find this option under Others → Options → Language and Gameplay and set it to On. The trick does not work without this enabled.
Kill and skin all the animals in the clearing.
Open the world map and navigate to the Factions tab.
Select any visible faction icon on the map nearby.
On PC, double-click the left mouse button on it. On controller, press Triangle (PS) or Y (Xbox) to open its 3D render.
Close the faction render and exit the map.
Return to the clearing — all the animals you killed have respawned in their original positions.

This reset works indefinitely and has no cooldown. You can repeat it back-to-back to stack Thin Hide as fast as your inventory allows. It is the same trick used for farming Thick Hide from rhinos — just applied to small mammals instead.

Method 2 – Buy from the Tannery

Every Tannery in Crimson Desert sells Thin Hide for 8 Copper each. This is cheap and convenient if you only need a small amount. Look for the animal hide and needle icon on the map to find Tannery shops — they appear in most major towns across all regions.

get thin hides in crimson desert buy from Tannery

Stock details:

Stock per Tannery: 4 Thin Hides at a time
Restock timer: Every 5 in-game days (around 10 real-time hours)
Total available across all Tanneries: Up to 28 Thin Hides if you clear every Tannery in the game in one run

There are 7 Tanneries across Crimson Desert. The one in Hernand run by Bran is the easiest to access early on and is a reliable first stop. If you need Thin Hide urgently and do not want to hunt, clearing all 7 Tanneries in one trip gives you a solid 28-hide top-up with minimal effort.

Keep in mind that vendor stock is shared with other materials. For merchant restock timers and how to plan your buying runs, our guide on when merchant shops restock is useful to have handy. You can also check out Patrigio’s Secret Shop for rare vendor options.

Method 3 – Ranch and Livestock (Passive Long-Term Source)

If you have already unlocked the Ranch at Howling Hill Camp, you have access to a passive, renewable source of animal materials — including hides. While the Ranch does not directly produce Thin Hide from its animals in the same way that wild mammals drop it, certain small animals kept at the ranch and slaughtered for materials can contribute to your supply over time.

The main ranch value for hide farming is indirect — it lets you maintain a supply of animals without constantly hunting in the wild. Rabbits, for example, can be kept and harvested passively. If you are running a well-managed ranch with bred livestock, you reduce how much wild hunting you need to do for basic materials over the long term.

For the full setup guide, check out our articles on how to unlock the Ranch and Farm and how to breed animals. If you want to sell surplus animals from the ranch, our guide on how to sell animals covers that too.

How to Maximize Thin Hide Yield Per Hunt

Use the Goblin King’s Treasure Dagger

The single best tool for maximizing hide drops in Crimson Desert is the Goblin King’s Treasure Dagger. It has a passive ability that gives you a 10% chance to obtain additional hide every time you skin an animal. Since daggers in Crimson Desert are used as secondary weapons during assassinations and stab finishers, you can equip it in your dagger slot and get the passive bonus without it affecting your main weapon setup.

Over a long farming session, a 10% bonus per skin adds up to a significant extra yield. If you are doing dozens of skins per session using the spawn reset trick, the bonus hides accumulate fast. Check our Goblin King’s Treasure Dagger guide for the exact location and how to get it.

Use Poisoned Arrows for Group Hunting

When hunting groups of small animals like raccoons or baby deer in a tight clearing, poisoned arrows let you hit multiple targets quickly without chasing each one individually. Fire into the group, wait for the poison to do its work, then skin everything at once. This is faster than chasing each animal down with melee and reduces the chance of some escaping out of range before you can kill them.

Hunt at Night

Herd sizes at the west Hernand clearing are noticeably larger at night. If you arrive during the day and the clearing looks sparse, advance the time using a campfire or inn rest. Evening and nighttime spawns reliably produce the biggest groups of baby deer at this location. Our guide on how to change the time of day covers the fastest methods.

Skin Every Carcass

This sounds obvious but it is easy to miss bodies in a chaotic hunt, especially at night or when fighting multiple animals at once. After clearing a group, do a sweep of the area before triggering the spawn reset. Each unskinned carcass is a wasted Thin Hide. Check the minimap for interact prompts if you are unsure whether you got everything.

Thin Hide vs Short Hair Hide vs Thick Hide

Crimson Desert has three main hide types and they serve different purposes. Here is a quick breakdown so you know which animal to target for what:

Thin Hide — From small mammals (foxes, baby deer, raccoons, rabbits, etc.). Used to refine and upgrade light leather armor and jewelry.
Short Hair Hide — From medium mammals (adult foxes, adult deer, moose, goats, cows). Used for medium armor upgrades and some crafting recipes.
Thick Hide — From large mammals (rhinos, elephants, bears). Used for heavy leather armor and jewelry upgrades. Sold at Hernand Tannery for 20 Copper. Rhinos and elephants are found in the northeast Crimson Desert region.

Since foxes and deer of different sizes share the same locations, you can often collect Thin Hide and Short Hair Hide from the same hunting run just by targeting both baby and adult animals in the herd.

Tips and Common Mistakes

Always skin after killing. The hide is not in your inventory until you manually skin the body. Do not skip this step or move on too quickly.
Enable the Faction 3D View setting before farming. Without it the spawn reset trick does not work. Check it is on under Others → Options → Language and Gameplay before you start your session.
Do not rely on Tanneries alone for large quantities. With only 4 Thin Hides per shop and a 5 in-game day restock, buying your way to a large stockpile takes a very long time. Use Tanneries as a supplement, not a primary source.
Pair Thin Hide farming with Short Hair Hide farming. Since baby and adult deer share the same herd at the west Hernand clearing, you can collect both types in the same session without any extra travel.
Equip the Goblin King’s Treasure Dagger before skinning. The bonus applies at the moment of skinning, not at the moment of the kill. Make sure it is equipped in your dagger slot during the skinning animation to get the 10% bonus.

More Crimson Desert Farming and Crafting Guides

Crimson Desert is available on PC via Steam, Epic Games Store, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. For the latest news and updates visit the official Crimson Desert website.