I was thinking of hastening the maceration process by adding a little gift from the kitty litter box to the water for the first 2 changes, and rotting the skulls inside for the first few days, until they smell nasty and then they get kicked out.
Will this be effective? It's only 35-40 degrees outside.
Should I add anything to the water to make the maceration process more effective? (such as, a degreaser, a proteolytic enzyme, a lipolytic enzyme, salt, etc)
Oh, should I encase the skulls inside a "pantyhose stocking" to keep the littlest bones from getting lost?
I want to get them "well rotted" before winter really kicks in, so I can have more time to degrease and whiten them properly.
Dermestid beetles are not an option. Boiling is too "beginner", I will not do it.
These are very small skulls, 5-10 grams each.
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Don't macerate them unless you really know skulls well. This is one of those times where I say maceration is no good... since they are small skulls - they will fall apart like crazy if yer not on top of your game. I do pheasant skulls and muskrat skulls, but it's not as easy as doing a bobcat or deer. Just know what yer gettin in to.
As for your specifics, just add water. Thats all you need to do. Let the bacteria do their thing. Any additions to the solution for whitening degreasing etc should be made AFTER macerating. You wouldn't put a degreaser in with beetles, don't put it in with bacteria. I am heavy into research for more complicated procedures at present, though no conclusions have yet been made (I won't give out any of my data or info on the work here). Used incorrectly however, salts and enzymes can (and most often do) do more harm than good. For now - just add water and when it's clean - degrease with dawn dish detergent and water or acetone (suspend the piece off the bottom if you use acetone) and whiten/disinfect with 3% peroxide.
Also - why not just put each skull in it's own little container? Grab these cheap with tight fitting lids at Wal Mart. No need to keep them outside... each skull gets it's own container so bones dont get mixed up.... Ya know how if ya put left overs in the fridge and ya can see it all green n nasty but it doesnt smell until you open it? Same thing with macerating... if the fit is tight enough - you needn't worry.
Hope that helps =)
..high school biology teaches you that most of the natural boy is made from amino acid which forms the protein of which the body is made up of. Adding cat crap, besides the incidious thought of someone actually having a cat in their house to begin with and having to clean up after the nasty bastards to end with, is a good way of dissolving both the meat and the bones in head being macerated. Since when did "boiling become too 'beginner'"? I submit that it takes a helluva lot more talent to boil a skull properly without destroying it than it does to drop it in a bucket of water and let it rot.
Was go buy an aquarium heater and put it into the bucket with the skull. The bucket won't know it's cold outside.
I searched the archives for a bit (during and after I posted) and read a bunch of your posts.
I recognize that it's going to be a lot of "fun" looking for those little bones that fall apart. I've got forceps and time and a strainer, will make use of all of these items.
GREAT idea about each skull getting it's own little rot container. I'll get out the dixie cups and plastic wrap.
I will not add any "cat box filler". :)
(cats aren't clean, they're covered with cat spit. :)
Any hints on what the best under/overcoat would be for these once they are all macerated, degreased, whitened, and then sun-dried? A good non-yellowing, matte finish. I prefer something I can dip them in to vs. spray on (fumes bad, air quality good.)
These are quail. Little, fragile, lightweight, and avian, I know it'll be a task! The beak sheaths should pop off like horn cores, correct?
The cat crap isn't entirely a bad idea - it's just overkill and not entirely controllable. The bacteria involved in breaking down foodstuffs remain in feces and *will* contribute to the process somewhat - you were on the right track... but the benefits are offset by the 'mud' you'll end up with in your solution when all the solid waste dissolves. I don't suspect the bacteria present would contribute *that* much of a headstart over just airborne bacterium alone to warrant the extra cleanup and murky water which will make it very hard for you to monitor your progress. The part about not being entirely controllable refers to the fact that all the bacteria and enzymes in the feces will act upon your skulls - not just the beneficial ones.
For small stuff I often use one of those little craft containers that are a foggy white and divided into cells. This is not air tight though - so if odour is a concern you may want to avoid it. A fwe little skulls don't stinka *lot* but some people may not like it all the same. I once did a bullfrog and cut him into pieces and each cell got it's own share of the frog. Then I drew a labeled diagram to identify where each part was - sort of like the guide you get in a box of chocolates showing which cell has which part.
When doing things like quail you will want to especially watch for the vomer - the long thin bone in the roof of the mouth, as this disarticulates readily. Also you may want to VERY carefully extract the eyeball with a needle (pop the eye and drain what you can to make the eye smaller), then try to remove the sclerotic ring that covers the perimeter of the eye. I don't recall off hand if they have a single ring like a washer - or if it is a segmented ring. Solid rings arent that bad - you can recover those easily enough. Segmented rings are a pure nightmare to reassemble! These segmented rings can even be disarticualted by dermestids so you can imagine how readily they will pop apart via maceration! And yes - the sheaths will pop off easily - usually mine come off after two or three days. The bone underneath has lots of cool pores and texture...
As for a topcoat it depends if you want your product to be reversible or not. As a standard application - 50/50 white glue and water will work but is not readily reversible. Since I use conservation consolidants at work on fossil, I naturally gravitate to those things for my own osteo work as well. For a matte finish - something like Butvar B98 from Solutia would work. To combine reversability with cost effectiveness and availabilty - a flat finish, UV resistant urethane (water based) is a good all around choice. A small can of this in the paint department of Wal*Mart should go a LONG way... Just be sure to clean up any drips where it pools up or these will appear yellow and icky. When you first dip it - it will look bluey/ white.. don't worry - this will dry clear. Again - be sure to not let it form drips... just a nice thin even coat and yer good to go.
Hope that helps =)
Trypsin has been studied reasonably well by Scientists at the Smithsonian Institution. If you have a supply handy, a little wouldn't hurt. Trypsin is one of the chemicals used in clearing and staining vertebrate specimens, and it does no visible damage. A link that gives an abstract of the research is found on the SPNCH web site at: http://www.spnhc.org/documents/CF13-2.htm
Maceration, in general, is an inferior method of cleaning very small skeletal material, especially if the specimen is desired to be articulated. Rib cages of insectivores or small warblers would be very difficult to re-assemble if they were disarticulated to their component parts.
Boiling, or should I say, simmering, can produce reasonable results in a fast manner, if the skull is large, and it is de-fleshed and de-brained before the simmering. The brain contains much fat, and if the meat and fat clinging to the head is not removed, there is a chance that fat will be simmered INTO the bone material. Fats with very high saturation and complexity. i.e. those that are very hard at room temperature, neither dissolve well from bone material, nor macerate efficiently from it when it is set into the bone by boiling. Fat will dissolve better from bear bones than from deer bones.
It is not uncommon to add a "starter" into a maceration tank/container. While cat crap in large quantities isn't good, a pinch of it the size of a raisen may be advantageous. When you macerate a carcass, you are at the mercy of bacteria which are present in the solution. There are thousands of bacteria strains which may be present on a dead body, and their mode of action is to produce their own enzymes into the solution which allows breakup of the potential food material until it is of sufficiently small size that it can be phagocytized or move through the cell wall. Perhaps hundreds of different enzymes can be in solution, and the gods determine which bacteria, and which enzymes fill the solution, and thus determine how good, and fast, the maceration occurs. Sometimes a good mix results in spotless, un-fat clean specimens, and the next time, the maceration doesn't work worth a piece of cat crap.
Dermestid colonies, if the person runs them well, are the best method of cleaning bone material. Some people have never learned the proper techniques or methodology, and must resort to maceration or boiling or burying in dirt, or maggots, or any number of other methods. All methods work to some degree, but the end result is based on the skill of the preparator.
I use two cans of beer for 5 gallons of water to produce enzymes.
Thats a blatent "party foul". I hope it was at least cheap beer!(LOL)
I have had the skulls inside the containers, in water, in a nice warm (72-74 degrees) environment, lids are on but not tight as I am monitoring for the smell (so I know when to move them), and they do not smell at all!
The water became semi-opaque but other then that, the skulls just look kind of gross floating around in there. The meat is not falling off, etc.
Should I add some "anti-chlorine" stuff to the water to make it stop killing bacteria, so that these things will rot?
Or should I maybe make a little culture of saliva and water (probably better then cat poop - certainly more clear :) and add that.
Should the skulls sink, or float?
All the skulls were frozen except four that I acquired over the past 2 days.
The four fresh skulls also do not smell.
Each skull weighs under 10 grams so I was expecting some major progress in stink-ology by now!
I have 16 skulls going and I can walk right up to the rotting area and there is NO SMELL at all.
Have I done something wrong?
Taxidermologist, the words "cat crap" do not belong in your learned vocabulary. I am disappointed.
Justmad, that's alcohol abuse. LOL.