I have used sal soda to clean a bobcat skeleton and at this very moment I'm working on cleaning a mink skeleton with it. Can anyone tell me if sal soda would harm a bird skeleton? I would like to add a duck to my skeleton collection but I was not sure if sal soda would mess the delicate bones up.
Thanks for your help and info.
Taxidermist in Training!
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and pose the question to him. Personally I don't think soda ash [sal soda] will harm or weaken any bone but like I said, best to ask someone that's been there?
I don't think the sal soda would hurt bird bones at all. All I can think of that might be a problem is the fatty marrow in certain bones. Even so, it wouldn't be any worse than mammal bones so why not try it? I have prepared a few bird skeletons [just for fun] with nothing more than a slow simmer to remove the meat and drugstore peroxide to whiten the bones. It worked fine for my purposes, although they were parrots that had died sick and had no fat at all.
Bird skeletons are neat looking, and they shouldn't be any problem for you after doing a bobcat.
Nancy M.
Sal soda will not produce museum quality specimens. The Sodium in the washing soda will react with the calcium in the bones and create a certain amount of chalking on the surface. Also, bird bones are structurally very differently than mammals as far as density, since they have to be able to fly (most anyway).
Read through the archives (at least some of them, they are full of many opinions). Dermestids are the answer.
I would like to buy sal soda. Any ideas on where to purchase it?
WASCO sells Sal Soda for bone cleaning at http://www.taxidermy.com/cat/15/skull.html