I have a quick question about maceration. When I let my bear skulls rot in the water and then take them out I loose teeth out of them, how can I stop this so I dont have to search through the goo for the teeth and try to figure out which skull they went to. Thanks, Kevin
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that's why you have to check your skulls on a regular basis. Collect the teeth and put them aside in a small container. Check all the teeth on the skull and if you can pull all of them out. Let the skull finish going through the maceration process. In the meantime your teeth are save in that container.
Also, you should never have more then one skull per bucket or you'll be in for some long nights sorting out the teeth to go with the correct skull.
In our shop we use those white nylon mesh bags with a zipper on them. They are normally used for enclosing delicate fabrics in the washing machine and are available everywhere. Put each skull in its own bag. Good Luck We also put the skulls in these bags when we soak them in the bleach.
check them often and pull the teeth and set them aside. One of the easiest ways I've found is once you take the teeth out (not letting them FALL out) is to place them on a styrofoam meat tray (what your hamburger comes wrapped on) in the order that they came outta the jaw, that way it's not even a guessing game on the smallest teeth when you get ready to put them back in.
If you have more than one skull use colored zip ties around the jawbone and eye socket area and place one on the meat tray with the teeth. I've had as many as 25 trays lined up at one time waiting for the skulls to finish macerating. It's also easy to clean the teeth this way, pour some 3% peroxide in the meat tray, let sit overnight and they're usually done the next day.
Wolfie
..if you are using bleach you're going to ruin your skulls.
Wolfie
Wolfie: I said bleach but i meant to say hydrogen peroxide.We use the 40% mixed 50/50 with water. AL