How To: Skull Cleaning

[skullclnr]

Hello everyone, I am new here but there has been some interest in skull cleaning so I thought I would start a post on the subject.

Don’t just throw out those skulls after you skin your coyote or butcher your deer, clean em up and hang them on the wall to show off your trophy in a unique way. With a little time you can make your own trophy European mount here’s how I do it and a step by step pictorial of the process.

So you have whacked a nice yote, trapped a nice beaver or bobcat or shot a buck that you want to do a European mount on…where to start? Lets go from this to this:

DeerBefore.JPG

DeerAfter.jpg

Deer season is over and it will better pertain if I use a coyote so thats what Ill be cleaning in this post? 1st step after the kill will be skull prep, lets get going.

[tmrschessie]

Excellent, looking forward to this one. Tom

[cnelk]

skullclnr,

Can a existing european mount be "re-whitened"?

[skullclnr]

Originally Posted by cnelk

skullclnr,

Can a existing european mount be "re-whitened"?

Yep, if they have been sealed it is a little harder you have to strip the sealer off first. But most of the time the reason a mount needs to be rewitened is because all of the grease was not removed completely from the skull, well cover this towards the end of the skull process.

[skullclnr]

K here we go: the first step in producing a real clean white skull is skull preparation. There are a few different ways to get the flesh off the skull but the more you can remove now the faster they wil go. I start with a dead coyote:
YoteBefore.JPG
and skin it:
raw1.JPG raw2.JPG

after skinning ,the eyes, tongue, and brain are removed. To remove the brain take a piece of wire and whisk the brain, then rinse out in a slop sink or with a hose. I use a blast of high pressure water to flush the brain out, other people bend a piece of wire into a "u" shape and put it in their drill chuck to make a whisk, after a few seconds of whisking the brain should wash out easily.
The skull should now look like this:
rawremoved1.JPG rawremoved2.JPG

With your knife spend as much time as you have the patience for and remove all the pieces of meat you can. It took me a long time to realize that you can cut a piece of meat off in 10 seconds but it will take three minutes to boil it off. Be careful not to nick the skull at this point, you don't want knife marks in your finished skull. Remove the bottom jaw and skin as much meat off that as you can also.

Now we have a prepped skull ready for the main flesh removal. I have used three methods of removal, simmering, bacterial removal, and dermistid beetles. I will post my likes/dislikes of each with an explanation later.

Does anyone else out there do skulls, and if you do what is your preferred method of removal?

[tmrschessie]

I think you are in the drivers seat on this one....We used fire ants in Az....glad we don't have them here. Tom

[Mike]

I do quite a few skulls myself. Easiest one ever was a whitetail a buddy had in the freezer. I got it this past summer and set it outside next to the shop, picked clean in a few days. Usually I boil them though. Cut off as much as possible beforehand. Nice muley though ya got there. I finally added one to my collection last fall. I did a batch of coyote and fox skulls once a few years ago and they all fell apart, boiled too long I think. Had some other stuff in there, mink, coon, bobcat, beaver, they all came out ok.

[skullclnr]

Thanks Mike, the muleys aren't mine though, just ones I did, or am doing for customers.

For those new to cleaning or wanting to get started, I think the most widely used method of cleaning is like Mike does, boiling or simmering. Like I said there are three ways I do skulls, simmering, bacterial removal (soaking), and dermistid beetles.

Lets look at simmering first. Boiling or simmering is just that the skull is soaked in hot water until all the flesh falls off the bone, like a nice batch of pulled pork just not quite as tasty!! Most people start by boiling, it is easy to do, fast, and done correctly produces a nice skull. The draw backs of boiling is the damage you do to a skull, often the delicate bones inside the nose are broken, the seams split open a little and you can have some skull shrinkage. This is important if the skull is going to be measured for the books, you don't want any skull size loss. Also boiling forces allot of grease deep into the bones, making it much harder to get out later and can produce yellow colored areas after whitening the skull. So you want to boil your skull here's how. Go to the salvation army or the thrift store and buy the largest cheapest big pot you can find, you don't want to take any from the kitchen its going to get ruined. You will also need a heat source, I use a turkey boiler other people use a Coleman stoves or small camping stoves, you will need a old box or tin to throw meat into, a small paint scraper, a old screwdriver or something you can use to pry meat off with. Also go to the supermarket and buy a box of "arm and hammer supper washing soda" (like $3 and it will last you 50 skulls) they will call it salsoda in the taxidermy business, but this is all it is. Now, if your skull has horns take some aluminum foil and wrap the horn bases up about 5 inches to protect them. Get your pot filled with water get your burner going, and put your skull in. I add about a cup of the washing soda, be careful only add a little (I use a big pot so maybe add a .25 cup), also add a squirt of dawn to cut the grease. Bring her up to temp, and let it sit at the point just before a rolling boil. Check the skull every ten min, take it out and try and scrape off meat into the old box or tin, then put it back in. Its work and will take a while, just don't get the water boiling to bad, also try to keep the horn bases out of the water as it will discolor them. Just take your time, change the water if it gets too nasty. Some people say they can get a skull done in 30 min, it has always taken me a few stinky hours though. Once the skull is done, wash it off good and let it dry. Be careful not to loose any teeth and bones as they often slip out. Here's a picture the last time I made some stew, anybody hungry????????
DSCF1447.jpg

Next we will look at my prefered methods of removal, by bacteria and bugs.

[WarPig]

Great thread Skullclnr. Waiting for more.

[skullclnr]

Sorry for the delay on this, I was out calling some late season song doggies this weekend.

So lets look at my preferred methods of flesh removal: by bacteria and bugs. Removal by bacteria, or maceration, involves soaking the head in water and allowing bacteria to consume the flesh making it fall off the skull. This process is not for those who are bothered by smell cause trust me it STINKS! Pros of maceration are that the skull produced has no damage to the nasal bones or other small bones, and on greasy skulls like bears and hogs, the bacteria will consume alot of the fatty deposits deep inside the bones, making the skull alot easier to whiten, also you don't have to do anything, just check the skull every week or so. Cons of the process is obviously the smell, its pretty bad, and the time it takes...depending on temperature and the actual skull it can take from two weeks to months to finish the removal process. If you are up to the smell and want a real clean skull here is how I do it: Drop the skull into a bucket, cover with water, if you are doing this outside(recommended) make some kind of lid and weigh it down so animals can't get into the bucket or tip it over. I use a aquarium heater to keep the water warm, warmer water will facilitate more bacteria, thus a faster clean. Check the skull every week or so, scrape any flesh you can off and return to the bucket. After about two weeks change all most all the water, leave some to jump start the new batch of bacteria. When changing take your water some where that the smell wont get the neighbors up in arms and as you pour it out watch for teeth as they may have fallen out. Keep checking until all the flesh is gone, then wash the skull off in some warm soapy water and let dry. Macerated skulls whiten real easy and look great. I seldom use this process anymore, it does produce real nice skulls but I use a method that is quicker and produces similar results.

Lets now look at the method preferred by most taxidermists and museums for flesh removal, dermistid beetles. Dermistid beetles or "carpet beetles" are a bug that is well known for consuming flesh, rotten or fresh these little guys will eat almost anything. Skulls are cleaned fast with no damage to the bone structure. The draw back is that you have to maintain the colony. Well go into this a little later but for know lets get going on our project. I will use a new dermistid beetle colony to clean the flesh off our prepped coyote skull. After prepping the skull into the beetles it goes, this is one day ago:
bugsday1.jpg
After a 5 minutes they are already getting to work:
bugsday1b.jpg
A little later they are really earning their keep:
bugsday1c.jpg

Kinda like you guys using ants to clean your heads the beetles will eat all the flesh. Has anyone ever boiled a deer head and had the nose bones break, or not been very happy with the results? Lets hear some horror stories.

[Husker1911]

Thank you for a thoroughly interesting and informative thread!

[cnelk]

skullclrn:
You may want to post a disclaimer for the "faint of heart or stomach"

[tmrschessie]

LOL, I make predator bait. Having cleaned a few with the boiling/soaking methods, I think I can handle the odor. It don't really come close to some of the predator baits I make.
But those of you who can not change a baby's diaper might want to hire Skulclnr to do them for you....It does get rank. Tom

[skullclnr]

Thanks Husker, I am really enjoying this and this site..there is a wealth of knowledge here and I love learning. cnelk, "faint of heart, stomach, or not for those that gag easy!!"

Heres and update, the bugs are almost done, I will grab som pics today and post later.

[skullclnr]

LOL Tom, we should start a post called "What stinks the most" with a hunting theme of course!

But your right, if you cant take the smell let some one who can, do the work...you dont want to get half started and realize you cant finish!! I dont much like getting half rotting heads shipped to me...there should an extra "rotting fee" for those ones, LOL!