Skull Cleaning with bugs

[LeeBishop]

I know beetles are great for cleaning skulls for European mounts, but I don't have a box of pet beetles.

So, I dug out a few inches of a fireant mount and set my dried skull down inside of it and covered it with the cut-off end of a barrel.

It's an experiment for me at the moment, but I'm wondering if any of you guys have had any luck using ants/fireants to clean skulls with.

What I did was I soaked the skull to return some moisture to it (had it dried in salt)  and then coated it with corn syrup.  I am hoping they will eat the rest of the  material.

[WESTBROOK]

I just soaked mine in a bucket of water for about a month. Submerge it only upto the antler bases. In the warm months bacteria that forms in the water will clean it right up, just spray it off with a hose...then whatever whitening u choose.

Eric

[bowgy]

I tried it a couple times years ago but coyotes or bears or some other scavengers came along and took the heads.

[TRAD101]

I have had good luck with maggots. take a 5 gallon bucket with a lid, drill a bunch of 3/8
holes in it all the way around the bucket,put
your skull in it and seal the lid back up, hang
it on a fence post or up a tree if you have varmints and leave it for a month or so in the heat of the summer. flies fill it with the maggots and the skull come out slick and clean.
if a 5 gal bucket is not gig enough you can go
with any container that will hold it. I have always done it this way for hog skulls and it works great.

[Blue Tick]

I do taxi work and use beetles on my euros. You will find that the ants will work, however plan to get stung some with that process. You will also be fighting cleaning up the dirt and such that sets into the skull itself. Not an impossible thing to clean up or get nice and white, but you are in for a little more work.

Masceration (putting the skulls in water) works just as well, as Westbrook mentioned above.

If you have questions or need any help, I'd be happy to help. Good luck!

[Michigan Mark]

Have not tried ants but I buried a skull up to the antlers of a small buck and covered it with a plastic trash bucket with a cinder block on it (to keep the big critters off) for the fall into winter. Checked late spring and hosed it off (did not wire the jaw bones) and put it in a bucket of bleach water. Hang it in the yard as the wife stated that is not coming in the house.
Here how she turned out which was originally done about 5 years ago.
 

i boiled and simmered mine, but never did finish it while it was fresh and then i forgot about it until recently, so i rehydrated it by putting it in a 5 gal. bucket with enough water to cover the skull.
     it sat for about a month,...shewwyy' it stunck!
     when i pulled it out i figured i would have to pick all the junk off of it,
   but it came out clean . all the junk had just fallen off in the bucket.
   then i used peroxide and hair bleach to brighten it up some, turned out pretty good.

 
 
 

[LeeBishop]

I think I may take it out of the yard and put it in a pot of water to soak. I have a screened porch on an old farm house on the property that I can leave it so I dont have to smell it rot.  

Im too impatient to wait for little ants to do it.  Its been there for a few weeks, but they are working a bit too slow for me.

I will check it in a little bit but I expect it to look about the same as last time. they aren't as awesome as beetles.

[meathead]

If you just soak it in water make sure that it is under a roof.  The direct sunlight well start whitening the antlers.  The month or so it takes to clean the skull will lighten the antlers quite a bit.

[whitetail_downer100]

I have done a couple hundred of european mounts (The byproduct of my father running a deer processing business and my studies in business school) and have found that boiling them in sodium bicarbonate and the pressure washing them to be the fastest and most efficient way to clean them.  Pressure wash the brains out first or you'll have a heck of time with them later.  I did get my time for cleaning a skull down to about an hour with 45 minutes being the boiling time.  Slow rolling boil is the key and plenty of sodium bicarbonate but it works really well and there is no waiting.  I have also done a few rams and larger skulls with beetles you can buy them online if you search dermestid beetles and they are fairly reasonable <30 for 50 or 100 which is all you need.  Just be sure to keep them contained and submerge the skull in boiling water as soon as you pull it out to kill any that remain inside.  Hope this helps.

[TooManyHobbies]

Just soaked in bucket of water. Pick clean/hose off once a month or so. Change water at same time. Don't let antlers get sun bleached. No peroxide needed on this one. It came out white like bugs did it.

 

 

[LeeBishop]

Originally posted by whitetail_downer100:
have found that boiling them in sodium bicarbonate

Hahahaha, not as manly to call it baking soda? lol.   Thanks fella.

I don't keep gas on hand to boil/cook with because I think it's a huge waste of money and I never grill with gas.

I may just put a pot on my smoker to get it to boil. I'm not going to stink up the house with a putrifying skull.

[Blue Tick]

You can boil them, just do it at a very low temp. The heat from "boiling water" will break down the bone and make it brittle. Depending on how much meat is left on the skull, baking soda will get it off, no problem. Mix a little clear dawn dish soap in if you go that route to help degrease the skull. If you do not degrease, then over time the fats and grease will leach out and it will turn yellow.

On the beetles, I have several thousand in my old chest freezer, which is my beetle box. They clean up a skull in just a few hours to a day or so.

My favorite method is beetles, followed by maceration.

[Blue Tick]

Here are a few that I've done recently. Aoudad, blackbuck, bobcat, mountain lion and whitetail.

 
 
 
 
 

[Bill Kissner]

I tried the ant hill thing several years ago. Buried a bull elk skull in an ant hill in camp in Colorado and left it for 3 weeks. Time to go home to Illinois so I took it out and was surprised, it looked just like it did when I put it in. Didn't work but maybe I needed to leave it longer.

[Osage61]

Guys, I have a bear head in my freezer that I've been waiting to do. If I use the bucket of water method do I have to remove the brain? Does the water just take of business?

i'd say remove as much brain as you can before you put it in the bucket, if you got hot weather it should be done in 3-4 weeks.

[stickum]

My buddy put his bear skull in a 5gl plastic bucket cut a whole through the lid and bucket so he could chain it to a tree next to a large ant mound and in two weeks the ants had picked it completely clean.

[LeeBishop]

Well i am smoking some bbq right now. I boiled the skull for a little bit at low temp but i took it off  so i could bbq.  I will put it back on the fire when i get done bbqing in about three more hours. I haven't boiled i t because i knew id burn the antlers hanging out of the pot. But im to the point of not caring.  So i will just clean thwart main beams up when they get discolored. I am afraid to wrap them over an open fire.

[Hit-or-Miss]

I brought a nice hog's head back from Florida last fall, as I wanted the skull. I left it near my pond, hoping nature & the bugs would clean it off. The smell was, well, lets just say "quite ripe". Something large, dog, coyote or bear, took it. Gone. Note to self; next time... BOIL it!