Chicken Skull issues

it's normal for a chicken skull to come apart in maceration.
chickens, pheasants, turkeys... basically all 'walking birds' have it happen, even ostrich, emu's etc come apart in maceration.
beetle cleaning them would usually prevent that but they aren't that bad to put together again.

here's a link with a diagram of the parts that can maybe help:

http://www.backyardchickens.com/t/343605/diagrams-poultry-parts-charts-and-lots-of-reading-updated-nov-13th

if you lay out your parts and post a pic I'll see what u have

 

I just remember this post by Jean-christophe, it should help you a lot too to lay out the parts.
http://www.taxidermy.net/forum/index.php/topic,247609.0.html

I would advise to glue the skull in one session with like elmers glue that is slow hardening. put the sheaths on the tips first, then glue in one session adjusting as you go till you have the joints and the beaks fit nicely. if you do it in several sessions chances are it won't fit in the end.

looking forward to result.
marc

 

I use beetles for skull cleaning, haven't macerated one yet, but I have noticed one thing. I have lots of friends who raise chickens and offer me the heads to clean, and I've stopped altogether taking skulls from the Cornish X meat breeds - the big fat white ones that look like chickenzilla. Every time I've cleaned them, no matter how gentle I am, they inevitably fall apart. They're slaughtered pretty young and they probably don't put a whole lot of energy into developing good bone structure based on the looks of them. Older stewing chickens or culls of any other breed I've had good results with.

Not sure if that's your issue here, but thought I'd share!

 

This is what i have done in the past with skulls i didnt want to fall apart.i did not macerate in hot water only at a luke warm temp and replaced water daily wile i rinced the skull and used a paint brush to brush away any tissue that i did not remove with scissors.did this severial times, Then before that moment of protein brakedown i took out of water,rinced off what i could, let it dry and whitened with developer.the developer softened any tissue left, scraped it off,i had more success doing it that way than articulating back together,which you would need to have the bone moist to actually put the skull back together due to the shrinkage if it is going to be articulated correctly....but some times you turn your back for one second and poof,those enzymes will just creep in there no matter what you do.good luck.

 

you sir have other issues

95° F is 35°C on my part of the developed planet. this can not ever possibly ever turn ur skull to dust
at this moment, I regret spending at least 20 minutes of my private time today looking up yr stuff which would have secured u a skull

'this is a replacement sentence for what I thought atm"

 

Yes

And the snake skull will come apart into a few pieces.fun fun fun there.and oh wait till you have to put the teeth back in..lol...teehee

 

If chlorine bleach got to it, that would be what destroyed it. Is it possible that your Dad was offended by the project and put bleach on it, knowing that bleach kills germs and didn't tell you. Your temperatures were fine. It is possible too that the chicken was very young and not fed a good diet for developing bone as it was going to be killed soon. If the bone structure itself was frail to begin with, any bleach would have been it's death.

Maybe ask around and see if a farm somewhere has some old, senior adult chickens that will give you the carcass or the head of one to work on when it dies. Keep your eye open for a Silkie chicken. Looks like it's covered with hair and the entire skeleton as well as the flesh is black.

 

Bleach is more than likely the reason.this is why i use developer w/basic white powder over peroxide.

 

I use 40 VOl clear developer with and without the Basic White. That developer is actually no less than 12% peroxide. I think the bleach he was talking about is the chlorine type like Clorox which will destroy any kind of bone.

 

Yea...bleach...lol...

I know what developer is but its still has different ingredients in it than stright peroxide.as i have been using it for 9 years.i used to use just plain peroxide till it started to degrade some of my very fragile bird skeletons if i didnt watch them close enought and was left on too long.and when your doing 3 african sun birds the size of quarters along with 3 dozen skulls,skeletons and mounts and a part time job, its hard to watch them like you should.thus is why i like my developer...

 

Nina, what strength peroxide were you using when it degraded your bird bones and how long did you leave them in there? There's nothing in that developer that would help prevent damage to bone. In fact you'd have a better chance of damaging bone with the 12% peroxide (developer) over the 3% peroxide from the drug store.


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im just offering my experiences of what i use and what has worked for me and what has not,to help people like people have help me in other areas on taxi.net..im not stupid and i know what im doing when it comes to skulls and skeletons and my work shows that.now one would think in 9 years i would have figured out by then that there are higher strigths of peroxides.its odd that you would state a fact when its wrong about the developer.i was here when i used it on my birds,you were not.i know which ones were affected by what and which ones were not.they both can damage if left on,true.never said they didnt.with developer you can see it and know its still on,another reason i like it.again.this is what i do,have done,and continue to do.and if people are sending me the pets from out of state to have the articulations done well,i guess i must be doing it all wrong then.hummm..again,just offering my experiences.

 

No offense meant. It just didn't make much sense to me but whatever works for you.

I may have misunderstood when you said developer. I'm now assuming you meant peroxide from the beauty supply store combined with basic white or similar powder that you paint on instead of soaking.


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Hope you didn't breathe in any of that "smoke". It wasn't smoke, it was Chlorine Gas.