Newbie - First Time Questions

So I’m just getting into doing some of my own skull whitening…. Feel like I’ve read thread after thread for hours and have done my best to learn without starting a new one to cover the same info, but each case presents unique circumstances of its own I guess.

This year I killed two bucks, and also recently took a couple of coyotes, so decided to save some money and try to clean up the deer myself… and then figured why not play around with the coyote skulls while I’m at it.


Long story short, in regards to the deer: I skull-capped both of them, so there wasn’t even much bone to clean up. But it’s still been a nightmare to get the smell out. I boiled, got all the flesh off, macerated in ‘water only’ for weeks with an aquarium heater (changing water every couple days), and then, once all flesh was 100% removed:

(all with aquarium heater)
-soaked in Borax 3-4 days
-soaked in dawn dish soap for 4-5 days
-soaked in oxi clean for 2-3 days
-soaked in 10% ammonia “1/2 diluted” for 2-3 days

Just kept trying different things because there was still a pretty strong odor. When all was said and done, one of the bucks in particular *still* really has an odor to it.

I think I’ve pinpointed the odor to primarily up around the antler base…. But even though I’ve wrapped the antlers in foil/electrical tape/plastic wrap when I soaked them in ammonia and oxi clean, the bases of the antlers still faded badly because the solution crept its way up. So I know the bone was getting exposed to the solution since the antlers obviously were too.

Basically, my question is: how do I further degrease/deodorize the bone at the base of the antlers without getting the antlers further faded/damaged? Like I said I’ve wrapped the antlers as tight as I know how and the solution is still leaking underneath a bit.


Now, onto the coyotes… lol.

One of the coyotes laid in a field for a month, probably Nov 20-Dec 20 or so. The other was killed on Dec 19, so on the 20th I took them both and started the process…. Boiled both heads, pulling and cutting away flesh every 15 mins or so.

Macerated in plain water and aquarium heater for 4-5 days and got remaining flesh off. The skull that laid in the field was brown and the fresher one was white, even before degreasing.

Then I basically did the same thing as I did with deer… Borax, Dawn, Oxi, and Ammonia soaks, same number of days, 2 days or so for each.

I just took the next steps on the coyote and submerged both skulls in 3% peroxide for 3 days (in a dark room).

Just pulled them out, and the one that laid in the pasture for a month is still pretty brown despite 10+ days of degreasing and 3 days of peroxide. Not sure if it’s grease, or iron, or just discoloration from the ground, etc…. But trying to learn what it is, and if it can be whitened or not — or if I am stuck with a brown skull. Picture attached.



thanks in advance!

 

Thanks for the advice…. I did go a little bit “Breaking Bad” on all the chemicals …. Being my first time doing this and reading so many articles, I kinda decided to “try them all”, especially when I started to see clear water after changes and it didn’t seem like one was doing much anymore, I’d switch and instantly get more fat floating at the top the next day. So seems like alternating them up was doing something anyway.

Plus, to complicate my situation, I live in suburbia and the smell was extremely unpleasant in the initial phases so I kept refreshing to minimize that. Neighbors could definitely smell it.

The antlers are hardened, not in velvet, but one set especially (unfortunately the smelliest one) has a really nice dark natural color to it, so I hate to have to fix/touch up too much of it…. But is what it is I guess.

Is there something I need to do to clean/descent the exterior of the antlers themselves? Or are you saying most of the smell is likely up inside the antler bone?


Regarding the coyotes, you’re telling me I get to play with another chemical?? I like it…. Lol.

Photo of the smelly set of deer antler attached. You can see where they’ve started to discolor around the pedicles/burrs.

 

Interesting…. I didn’t realize that at all. Is there any good way to preserve that coloring at all? Or will it change over time as that sap/tree bark coloring ages or dries out?

I really like how it looks, if putting a sealer of some type on it will preserve it I would do it, but I don’t want it to be something that distorts/yellows over time…. or makes it look unnatural.

Thanks for the info.

 

Lol…. Touché, add photography onto the list with taxidermy of “things I’m not good at”.

Not sure if these pics are any better, but you can see how badly around the burrs it got bleached out, and that was all during degreasing when I had the antlers wrapped in foil/plastic wrap/tape and did my best to keep the antlers out of the soak. Somehow some liquid still crept up…. And yet the pedicles smell awful…. So it was a Lose-lose.

In regards to recoloring, I’ve read everything from Potassium Permagnate to Minwax to Boiled Linseed, etc…. Not sure what would best to re-color the bases.

 

Whitening in this case, I feel like I actually did okay with…. I taped off the discolored burrs with painters tape and then used an artist/painters brush to carefully detail all around the pedicles, and then a bigger brush to do the remaining portion of the skullcap. I used 40V mixed with whitening powder…. Seemed to whiten well, didn’t make the burrs worse - they were already this bad.

Do you have a specific brand / color(s) you like when working with the acrylic paint?