Hi all,
My brother has a mount of a caribou with antlers in full velvet. The antlers were freeze dried before mounting, which was about 4 years ago. Last week, while dusting the mount, he found a bunch of worms (small, like wax worms) in the crevases within the velvet. A local taxidermist told him to try spraying the antlers with Raid, which he did. A bunch of the worms died and fell out of the mount. I'm wondering if anyone has ever experienced this, knows what kind of worms these are, where they come from, why this is happening, if they can all be killed with raid, etc. Any advise is greatly appreciated! Best regards, Brent.
Return to Deer Taxidermy Category Menu
Bag up the entire mount and spray it good . Close the bag and give it a few hours . If them bugs are in that velvet , they are probably in the mount also . If you have access to a big enough freezer , that would kill them also but who has freezers that big ? Good Luck to you and I hope you get them bugs killed off , Bradlee
A plastic bag, if it is abig mount you need to get a large plastic and make a bag, and put in a lot of mothballs for a couple of weeks, ot take it to an exterminator and have it gassed.
You have to do the procedure of bagging it more than just one time. the dermistid beetle larvas and moth catapillars have stanges where the insectacide may not kill them off. The eggs will not die from pyrithins. The best way to get rid of the bugs is to vacume the mount really well, with a strong vacume and useing a brush to loosed eggs and caccoons or anything else. Spray the antlers and whole mount heavy all over it. Like you were painting it. Place the mount into a large bag, and let it sit in there for 24 hours. Pyrethins will not last longer than 24 hours. It has a very short residule.
Vacume the moutn again, brushing it as well.
One thing I would also do is to get the chemicals into the mount by drilling small holes into the antler from the back side. Into the marrow in several areas. Also, make some small holes in the mount where they cannot be seen. Some insectacides that exterminators use come with a crevice straw that you can use ot spray into the small holes and treat the mount from inside out. Also do not over look the groove on the lips. those little guys can crawl up insode there and be away from the spray long enough to survive. Spray up into that really well, also making small holes with a awl sharpened to leave very small holes.