There is suposed to be a product on the market To add to water
if your not boiling the head I know about sal-soda it is some kind of
Enzimes
Return to Beginners Category Menu
Can you please form your question in the form of a QUESTION! Or are you TELLING us there is supposed to be something out there. Is this a new product? Where did you hear about it? Are you an experienced taxidermist that we all could learn something from or are you a regular ol joe schmoe who just stumbled across this site and was too lazy to think out the wording of his question or statement or whatever that was. Are you too lazy or too illiterate to punctuate your submission? Either way you don't need to be messing with chemicals or enzymes if you are stupid or lazy.
Ok, I got that out of my system, I guess I was a little hard on you, but next make an effort to present a acceptable question- one that can be understood and has punctuation. Even if it is in the wrong place at least try.
To answer your question. There is no acceptable chemical to remove the meat from a skull. There are three main ways to do it. All of which are in the archives, which you access by going to the little orange button on the left side of your screen and typing in the topic you are interested in.
The first one is boiling. Some say this will pit a skull and weaken it. Many people add sal soda to the solution. But personally I dont see as this helps much. Probaly because what few skulls i boil, i don't really boil, i simmer for a short period of time. Long extended periods of actual boiling is what deteriorates a skull. Sal Soda is Sodium Carbonate not to be confused with Sodium BIcarbonate. I have had people come into the ag supply store and ask me for bicarb to boil their skulls in, IT ISN'T THE SAME STUFF.
Second method is bugs. Some people(the real professionals) have dermistid beetle colonies that eat the meat off. If you want it done right, find someone who does that. Some people do the old.
Third method is maceration. Which is rotting it off. This is stinky and it has to be done right and the teeth will fall out. It is putting it in water and letting the bacteria grow and the bacteria will eat the meat off. You can glue the teeth back in though. You could do this one yourself as long as you ain't got neighbors real close to complain about the stench. Just go to the orange button and type in "maceration" or macerate. There are many good submissions onthis topic.
You can bury it in an ant hill but this takes time and is not as controlled and an animal could dig it up or rodent could chew on it. Some people claim you can leave it 'out by the barn' and the sun, and flies, weather, maggots, etc will take care of it, but it deteriorates the skull and more importantly the antlers more than necessary.
There are chemicals you can soak it in to 'eat away' the meat, such as bleach but it bleaches the antlers, eats away the bone, and i noticed if you have large areas of meat it wont eat all of it, it eats out the easy to eat away stuff and leaves a leathery jerky that will no longer rot or be eaten by any bug or maggot. You will have to whittle that awaay by hand with a saw.
Well i hope that answers your question, I ain't very qualified to answer many questions but i think i did ok on that one, if i didn't the real pros will let me know :) I sure was longwinded :-)
Although teeth should be removed regardless of method and properly treated. There are juices and connective root tissue in the dental cavity that can only be properly treated if the teeth are removed. There are materials in each tooth that should bet reated as well. Often people say "Teeth just crack - thats what they do" or that teeth discolouring is 'normal'. Hogwash.. it means they haven't treated the teeth properly. ANyway - I won't go on another rant about how most osteological prep is very poorly done since it never helps anyway - LOL! To asnwer your question though Gary - yes there are chemicals that will do it. You are likely refering to enzymes. These are great for removing meat, but can also do long etrm damage to the bone (causing it to turn to dust inside without you ever even knowing it). There are stronger chmicals like CTC (carbon tetra chloride) etc, but these are nasty things that you do NOT want to go near and are recommended for professional scientific use only (and even that rarely). For display purposes, use either beetle preparation or maceration and you will get nice results. And little to no damage. Of the dozens of methods in use - those are the two safest suitable for home or standard shop use.
just add some cheap beer to your water and watch them little bacteria grow. Combined with some heat like from the sun in the summer you can't loose. Just hope you have a good stomach as Griz pointed it out, it is a stinky mess.
Never thought i'd hear a
Texan say ;pour some beer out.
Yeast is something some people use to build bacterial cultures though I have no idea why. It's a completely different kind of biological matter. Flesh eating bacteria and yeast cultures are not the same thing. About the only thing I can see the yeast doing to help is creating a more anaerobic environment which can help increase certain types of bacteria.. but once the water begins to stagnate, the O2 levels drop anyway and the same bacteria predominate. I can imagine how SKUNKY it would get too tho - YUCK! Skunky beer and rotting heads - nice combination - LOL!
Anyway - readily available enzymes available are things like pure meat tenderizer (looks like salt - don't get teh falvoured kinds - LOL!) and commercial detergent based enzymes like Tergazyme. Again - I do NOT recommend these things as complete neutralization must be guaranteed to prevent partial or full bone loss in subsequent years.
this Texan is allergic to alcohol so I really don't care where I pour the beer. LOL.