Recovery Maceration And Assembly Of Deer Fawn Skull And Skeleton

Not at all sure what you are trying to do. Whatever method you are using, it is not one I am familiar with. Soaking uncleaned bones in ammonia isn't going to do much that I know of. If you are doing this at room temperature, drilling the bones will do little or nothing because the degreasing solution needs to be heated to 115 degrees 24/7 for the fat/tallow to melt and be removed. Degreasing bones with flesh on them is not going to turn out any sort of good result.

If you are trying to clean the bones using maceration, try using the SEARCH function on here and read about how to do it. There are several posts and at least a couple of tutorials on doing simple, single specimens like what you have. You may still be able to accomplish this but I don't know if your soak in ammonia will now prevent any good cleaning to take place.

 

Macerating would be better as you will not lose any bones. The water needs to be heated to work properly though. They will be clean in 2 weeks (not months) if you do it correctly. If you look at the posts on maceration (tutorials) there is one post where I address the odor and how to prevent it or, at least control it. Leaving the bones out will get many of the smaller ones lost due to other animals running off with them. That would include rats and mice which can get into your trap.. You can macerate each limb in a plastic baggie so the bones don't get mixed up. Easier to sort and put back together that way. The maceration to clean is also water only. No ammonia or anything else is added. Just plain water.

If you want to try and salvage this, and you probably can, make a trade with the wife. You do this .. she gets something. Even if it is dinner out. Can't hurt to try.

 

Hopefully it works. If you have an old blanket, wrap it around the bucket on the outside to act as insulation and hold the heat in.

 

The temp was actually fine. The bones fell apart because it was a very young animal and the bone plates were not yet securely fused together. Don't worry about them just yet but be gentle with them as they are probably fairly delicate. Check in a week and turn the temp up all the way. With the heater you have, you might get 90. The temp would be better at 115 but a fawn will not be very greasy and maceration dissolves a lot of the grease as well. After a week .. or two, rinse them all off with hot water and pour in enough peroxide to cover the bones and just let them sit. For these, you really might want to use the weaker 3% for cuts (drugstore/Walmart/supermarket type). The strong stuff might actually damage these as they are going to be thin. Let them sit in the peroxide until they whiten then gently lay them out on white paper towels until dry. you can sort them into groups of matching pieces as they dry to help try and figure where they will go before you start with the glue stage.

When you rinse with maceration, do so gently so you don't wash away even the smallest of bones. You will get good enough to recover even the tiny bones of the inner ear and you may have them in the bottom of the bucket with this one too.

Inner ear bones of a wolf

 

Bones look pretty good actually. Any little stubborn bits of ligaments can be shaved off with a sharp knife once they have dried a bit to firm them up. You will also be surprised at how much of the remaining tissue bits are dissolved by the peroxide step. Any little leftover bits of tendon that are left should dry clear and shrink to almost nothing. Use 40VOL peroxide if you can get it. The one with the red color ... is that one drilled so the center could get cleaned out? Looks a lot like blood still. If that didn't budge with degreasing/ammonia it might turn brown with the peroxide but a soak in Iron Out after should remove a lot of the off color. It may be that blood settled into that side of the carcass after death if it lay in one spot for a while.

 

That is coming along very nicely. Hopefully, you wiped the excess glue off the surface of the skull before it dried. You can use a damp cloth for that with Elmer's. Just enough to make contact in the joint is all you need.

 

The way your photo is oriented the bottom bone looks to be the xiphoid process but the very top bone looks to be a caudal vertebra (you sure it belongs there?).

 

I agree with Kendall. That top bone is a tail bone. And the orientation is correct (neck end at the bottom)

As a thought, this is becoming a really good thread on the process and assembly of a fawn skeleton. Maybe consider changing the title to Recovery Maceration and Assembly of a Small Deer Fawn Skull and Skeleton ?

 

Did you use Elmer's? You should be able to dampen the skull and loosen the areas in the back so you can get the ear bulla in place. You might have an issue with properly positioning the hooves if you have already glued the last toe joint in place.