Salt Preserved?

[Sage]

Hello again;

On another taxidermy forum, someone posted this in response to a cat skull with the fur still on (but brains removed) which had dried perfectly, looks great and didn't smell at all:

" just find something freshly dead, pose it, skin away what you don't want, then pack it inside a box surrounded by salt or borax. "

I wanted to know- would that method preserve everything?
Would you remove the internal organs or leave as-is and just surround it like the poster said w/ the salt/borax? How long would an animal preserved like that last? Has anyone actually done this with good success?

That would be really neat if you could preserve like that for small critters. (I imagine it would save a lot of work.)

Thanks!!

[jasonb]

I hate to say this, BUT this is really a dumb question  and if some so called taxidermist said that's how to preserve anything then they are out of there mind.JMHO

[PLTannery]

Dethchez does something like that with his mummies.  It will not work for taxidermy as the features shrivel and it becomes very "Dead" and dried looking. The organs, like the brain will rot long before the salt or borax will remove the moisture, so they must be removed.   A specimen preserved in such a way would be VERY suseptible to bug infestation. Especially with the large amounts of meat left on most things.

It has its uses... But taxidermy is not one of them...

[Old Fart]

It's called mummification. I believe the Egyptians used it successfully a "few" years ago. I's NOT taxidermy!

[Sage]

@Jasonb: see, that's what I thought, but I wasn't sure. As a newcomer, I'm not sure what 'works' and what doesn't, and I'd rather not risk anything by finding out the hard way. Glad I asked!

@PL: Thanks! I wasn't sure if mummification was an ancient version of taxidermy or if they were considered separate. (That's one thing that didn't occur to me to research.) I was worried about the bug infestation part. I did read a few pages saying that you could inject a preservative, but that triggered my "Uhhh...what?" flag.

@Old: Thanks for that clarification! Much appreciated. Gonna go do me some more research now..