A client brought in a pair of whitetail buck skulls that had locked-up and died to be euro/skull mounted awile back . Upon inspection
I discovered they were infested with dermestids under the dried out
skin and of course I freaked. I never let them near my shop and did
the processing in my chemical shed were I kept them stored. After I
was finished with the skulls I sprayed and fumigated the shed just in case they tried to hole up in there even though I do not keep any
hides or skulls in the shed. After getting a little panic minded I
sprayed my shop in case a few decided to make the 20 yard journey from
the shed. After soaking up as much of the archives as I could on the
subject I got to thinking about one of the posts recommending
endelsect flea spray to treat the finished mounts. This got me to
wondering if using one of the flea & tick drop type treatments on
the market would be effective in preventing infestation and whether
or not it would hurt the trophy in anyway.
Just wanted to get a little feed back on this subject and /or see
if anyone has tried this on their work .
thanks for any input,
russ
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Seeing as flea's and tick's need "live" host's, you could waste your $$ and do it anyway.
If you read the whole post you would see it was about prevention of
dermestids not fleas and ticks. Raven, had suggested a flea spray
called endelsect for control of dermestids in a posting in the archives. I figured if that worked maybe the drops would work with a
lot less trouble in the application.
I use a product called bug stop fond at lowes or any hardware store .its clear and wont harm your mounts we use it in my shop year round it last for 6 months .the lable does say dermestid bettle along with other bugs .we,v been useing it for about 7years without any problems .I spray every thing in the showroom, floors ,walls,corners,bears feet ,mist it on birds, even outside the shop,this stuff will kill eny bug that grooms itself.Even thow its TANNED if theyer hungry they,ll eat it.[caution ] dont breath the mist.we even spray the deerheads to kill the ticks as soon as they come in before we skin them out .
Thanks, for the tip! I will try the bug stop.
Russ