My 4 yr. son and I want to do a skeletal mount of a red squirrel. I know how to clean and bleach a skull, but not the fragile parts of the skeleton without ruining it. I also wanted to do it without using beetles. I was considering simmering it with baking soda. Would that ruin the skeleton?
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I'd recommend using beetles but if you'd rather not then I have a couple of other suggestions. The easiest is simple maceration. I like to add a tablespoon or two of a detergent called Biz, which really quickens the pace. I do all my maceration at 32 degrees centigrade, but that may or may not be a big deal.
The second suggestion is to use a digestive enzyme called trypsin. I use trypsin primarily for digesting the flesh on fish carcasses, but it works well on small mammals as well. It usually only takes a few days to have a perfectly cleaned skeleton. The downside is that its relatively expensive ($150+ for 500g), but since you use only a gram or so at a time, its cheap on a per specimen basis. Trypsin can be ordered from most scientific supply companies (e.g., Fisher Scientific)
On a side note, do you have a good diagram that shows how to reassemble the foot bones? Those suckers drive me nuts!