Hello.
This is my first time doing a skull so I need a little help. I recently aqquired a wolf skull from a friend of mine. What I would like to do with it is take all of the meat off, and leave a nice bleached skull behind.
I have gotten the hide pretty well stripped off, and all that's left behind is just some tendons, gums, and the brain(to which I haven't gotten figured out yet).
I have looked on the forum to see some professional taxedermist suggestions, on how to proceed with this, and i have gathered that "boiling" is not usually a good idea; unless you watch what you are doing. So far, all I have is a 5 gallon aluminum soup pot, and a skull. Now I need some pointers on how to proceed from here.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks so much.
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submerge the skull in water, bring to a boil, back off heat to a simer like a slow cooker. keep an eye on it as it slow cooks. remove when tissue looks cooked and loose, trim,cut, scrape off tissue, put back in cooker if need be, trim as needed. wash in dawn or gas, to degrease. while still damp brush on or submerge in peroxide. i like to mix peroxide with salt or borax as a paste and brush on and let dry for a few days. rinse after first dry let dry again. ps before you dump your pots check for loose or fallen out teeth!
Although more expensive, send it to someone with a bug colony. Skulls Unlimited is one place you could send it. Boiling, simmering, maceration all suck in my opinion. Boiling or simmering and maceration work, just not as good as bugs for your skull. Bugs are the only way to go for true quality. I use to have my own colony but I found out how hard they are to take care of and got rid of them. Now I send my skulls out for the most part. If you are really going to take a chance on boiling a skull I think I would practice with some before I placed a wolf skull in the pot. Wolf skulls are worth a lot more than say rabbit, squirrel, coon, and even coyote. I would get those and try them before I made my 1st attempt on a wolf skull. Just a suggestion. If you just jump in without practicing 1st you are going to end up with a burned skull and splitting teeth, weak and flaking bone. Tons of info under the orange button on procedures. Good Luck to you. Dan Hudzik
and read the article on skull cleaning. It will give you all the info you need.
here ya go...
Ok there's a few ways and I've tried them all :)
Boiling:
I don't reccommend this, but it can be done if you're careful with it.
First, get as much meat off as you can with a knife, scapel, etc. Immerse in a pot (however you CANNOT use an aluminum pot with the washing soda) and SIMMER slowly with about a cup of Arm & Hammer WASHING Soda (basically this is Sal Soda) until all the meat turns to a gel and you can rinse it and scrape it off with clean water. This usually doesn't take more than 30-60 minutes, sometimes less depending on how much meat is on it when you start. Teeth will fall out, so make sure to get them from the bottom of the pot to glue back in later. All the meat, including that in the nasal cavity will come out with this method. After this, degrease with whichever degreaser you prefer, I have used Dawn dishwashing liquid with very good results. Immerse skull with about a 1/2 cup Dawn in warm water and let sit until the water turns brown. Replace water and Dawn until water stays clean. This can take from several days to several weeks depending on the skull. Then whiten with good old 3% peroxide from WalMart (or other everyday store). This can take from 1-3 days, again, depending on the skull. Then let dry and glue the teeth back in.
Maceration:
Probably the easiest way to clean a skull, tho the smelliest and most time consuming. There are two ways to do this. This is my preferred method, either way.
1.) Place in a bucket of warm water with an aquarium heater on about 85 degrees and let it sit for a couple weeks covered. When you get ready to remove the skull, again the teeth will have fallen out (this is a GOOD thing, as the tooth cavities get clean also), so fish them out from the bottom of the bucket. Then rinse with clean water and the entire skull, including the brain and nasal cavities should be clean. If not, place back in the SAME water; this is important unless you want to start the process over again with creating bacteria in the water, and let sit another week or so. Repeat until the skull is completly free of tissue. Then degrease and whiten as above.
2.) Place in a ziplock bag and just let it rot in it's own juices in a warm place until it's done as in method #1. If you like 'natural' looking skulls with all the colors from cream to dark brown, this is the way to go. If not, then you can degrease and whiten as before.
Bugs:
I haven't used dermistid beetles, but I have used maggots and they do the same thing. I leave it outside in a bucket or bag and let the flies have at it. It's clean in a week or two and you can then degrease and whiten as above. I DO NOT like this method as the maggot carcasses get stuck in the nasal cavities and are VERY VERY hard to get out. It's time consuming and tedious using either a hard spray of water and then picking them out with a dental tool or something similar. But, if you have the time this method works just as well as macreration with good results.
Any questions on any of these methods, drop me a line :)
Wolfwoman