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LawDawg wrote:anyone ever tried those beetles? I hear that's the way to go since you don't have to deal with the boiling.

I actually moved from boiling to the beetles when I had my wholesale business. Very cool process, goo dthing about them is you can do anything. I cleaned rattlesnakes skulls, rats, gators, anything. Most of those would fall apart in hot water. Only thing about them is they are a good bit of maintenance involved and you have to be set up to use them .

put it in a ant bed

you can boil it with a little bit of laundry detergent... PS it smells like death so don't do it in your kitchen...

You can order Dermestid (sp?) beetles fro like 30 or 40 bucks... than you just kill um when your done... or keep um somewhere for enext year... and no they arent flesh eating like if they touch you they eat your flesh....you would have to be exposed for a long time

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Relentless wrote:you can boil it with a little bit of laundry detergent... PS it smells like death so don't do it in your kitchen...

You can order Dermestid (sp?) beetles fro like 30 or 40 bucks... than you just kill um when your done... or keep um somewhere for enext year... and no they arent flesh eating like if they touch you they eat your flesh....you would have to be exposed for a long time

ad stuff http://www.taxidermy.net/forums/Gamehea ... 3C97F.html

Don't waste your tie unless you are serious about the beetles. They send you about 30 in a film canister. You need several hundred to clean a skull. In fact, probably a thousand or so. It will take you a month or so to build that kind of a colony.

matador1 wrote:

Relentless wrote:you can boil it with a little bit of laundry detergent... PS it smells like death so don't do it in your kitchen...

You can order Dermestid (sp?) beetles fro like 30 or 40 bucks... than you just kill um when your done... or keep um somewhere for enext year... and no they arent flesh eating like if they touch you they eat your flesh....you would have to be exposed for a long time

ad stuff http://www.taxidermy.net/forums/Gamehea ... 3C97F.html

Don't waste your tie unless you are serious about the beetles. They send you about 30 in a film canister. You need several hundred to clean a skull. In fact, probably a thousand or so. It will take you a month or so to build that kind of a colony.

+1

Relentless wrote:

matador1 wrote:

Relentless wrote:you can boil it with a little bit of laundry detergent... PS it smells like death so don't do it in your kitchen...

You can order Dermestid (sp?) beetles fro like 30 or 40 bucks... than you just kill um when your done... or keep um somewhere for enext year... and no they arent flesh eating like if they touch you they eat your flesh....you would have to be exposed for a long time

ad stuff http://www.taxidermy.net/forums/Gamehea ... 3C97F.html

Don't waste your tie unless you are serious about the beetles. They send you about 30 in a film canister. You need several hundred to clean a skull. In fact, probably a thousand or so. It will take you a month or so to build that kind of a colony.

+1

Have you tried them Relentless.

Yeah an old man at our camp bought them at the first of the season... don't know much about them except that they do a great job and I did three skulls with them which more than paid for them...he bought a kit off the internet to keep them ECT. now we have them in the skinning house. waiting till the next two weekends hopefully! After I used them I used peroxide paste and wood stain to really make them look good. I'll find some pictures when I get out of the office.

I don't think just the general public can buy them though...

If you do boil the skull boil it in laundry detergent and pcik the stuff off, be sure to keep the horns out of the water....don't use bleach. Once you get everything off have someone who has a beauticians license go to Sally's Beauty supply and get Peroxide Paste. Use that to whiten the skull not regular peroxide or bleach.

But I do know you are right about needing a ton of them...

Put the skull in a bucket of water with an aquarium heater in it set at about 90 degress, Be sure to check it every couple of days to maintain the water level. In two weeks there will hardly be any meat or cartlidge left. Then you can boil it at a simmer for about 6 minutes and it's clean. This process is called cold water maceration and it's the standard for cleaning bones an such. Using this method will preserve the nasal conclea and sinus bones much better than the aforementioned methods. After it's boiled and dry, bleach it with 4% hydrogen peroxide and hang it out where it's in the sun Let it sit outside for about a week. It will be snow white and clean. You will have a top notch skull mount. Check out this link. It does a good job explaining things. http://ag.arizona.edu/pubs/natresources/az1144.pdf

The smell of one boiling in a pot is bad enough I can only imagine the smell of one sitting In a pot of warm water for two weeks

jdbuckshot wrote:The smell of one boiling in a pot is bad enough I can only imagine the smell of one sitting In a pot of warm water for two weeks

I tried it when I was doing them. It is RANK! But I will say, it works great!