I wish to clean the skulls of approximately 100 rats ranging in age from young to old for the purpose of biomedical research. I would greatly appreciate any input as to you the forum best thinks this should be carried out. From what I'm gathering, perhaps purchasing a colony of Dermestid beetles is necessary- followed by soaking the skulls in cleaner? Thanks very much for your expertise.
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Sounds like a nice little undertaking. What kind of research are you doing? This may affect your choices of cleaning. If this isn't going to be your first skull endeavor, the development of a dermestid colony is probably a good idea in the long run, but it will need to be maintained, and understand that 100 skulls will take a bit of time to clean using a starting colony and has it's inherent risks. If time is an issue, you may wish to contact a professional skull cleaner with a well-maintained colony and experience in such fragile skulls. Maceration may also be used to save time, as all the skulls can be done at once, but again its always a risk with skulls that small. You have multiple options depending on your availibilities. Let me know if I can help you any.