Badger Skull!

[worthy 55]

Started to collect skulls too !!! :Bonk:

[ebrocklds]

neat skull worthy. do you clean them yourself. i have a humming bird that i want to clean and get the skeleton, any ideas how? (it is dried out already)

brock

[worthy 55]

Brock, the guy I get the skulls from cleans them with some kind of bugs.

[milou115]

Hi !

I used to collect skulls too ! but I stopped few times ago ! I have also badger skulls my favorite ones !

To clean a skull, I used H202 I don't know the name in english but it works very well, in fact my technique was to clean it with knifes small tools...then you put it on H2O2 for about a day then you put it in water and make it boil for few minuts be careful it stinks ! then you put off the piecies of meat you can then you put it in H2O2 then you boil it you reproduce it until that you have the result you want

Most of all is explained here it gives another solution ! Skulls unlimited

See you !

[Gatorman]

Cool Skull, mean lookin critter.

[Guest Cris]

Cool skull! With teeth like that, and the attitudes they have.... They're kind of spooky..

[jkfoam]

Two Points; First point - Milou, the H202 is Hydrogen peroxide. It is generally sold here in the states as a 3% solution.

Second point - A friend of mine went fishing on the Amazon River in South America. After catching some exotic fish (I can't remember the name) the Guide gave the fish to there wives who cut off the heads and placed them on an ant bed. The ants ate all the flesh off the heads and the heads wetre returned to the fishermen for souviners. It only took a day or two for the ants to do the job. Maybe the ants can clean the skull. I know the fire ants around here are pretty vicious.

JKFoam

[Guest Cris]

JK,

I've actually seen that done before... It works.. I've seen the ants actually start to eat away at softer parts of the bone before, too.... I think Anson's done that with a few of the skulls he has.

[Harry Pristis]

Brock, the guy I get the skulls from cleans them with some kind of bugs.

They are dermestid beetles or "carrion beetles." Here's a link to some info. DERMESTID BEETLE INFO

[Gatorman]

Yeah I've done the ant thing a few times, it has to be a fairly fresh kill for them to do a good job.

[ebrocklds]

thanks for all the responses

i have cleaned several skeletons before but always larger things. i have even raised dermestids and had alot of luck with them. i think however they would eat the ends of the tiny bones.

peroxide, so i have heard, is nearly impossible to get rinsed off completely and eventually causes the disintegration of the bone.

unfortunately here in utah the ants are mild. i am sure that they would do the trick.

water ematiation is an option but then i have to try and reassemble the tiny little guy.

i think i will slowly clean it using hot water and ammonia to whiten but not deteriorate.

i was hoping for a miracle cure from someone

any suggestions will help

brock

[milou115]

Hi !

Thanks for the help Jkfoam

I have found back another site I used to visit it proposes another solution to clean the skulls and bones Here's the link

Hope that it will help you !

See you

Mil'

[Uncle Siphuncle]

I've shot lots of animals, eaten their meat, tanned their skins, and cleaned many of their skulls, and in some cases did head or full body mounts for the house. Badger is one of the few where I tanned the skin and cleaned the skull, but for obvious reasons chose not to eat the meat. The process I follow is similar to that mentioned above:

Cut off as much meat and hide as possible, separating the mandible and taking out the tongue. Scramble the brain with a thin screwdriver. Alternate boiling and picking off tissue with a fork. I usually do this outside in a designated "head pot" using a propane burner. Scrub with a plastic brush to get tenacious bit of tissue out of the foramina, fossa, etc. Bleach with H2O2 (hydrogen peroxide) overnight which I tend to put in a Ziploc bag with small skulls or paint onto large skulls repeatedly. Wrapping a big skull in paper towels then saturating them does a pretty good job of keeping the surface wet. I use 35% H2O2 available by the gallon at a science store. Be careful with this stuff as it is pretty caustic and will burn your skin and bleach it albino white. Definitely wear goggles and gloves when handling this stuff.

Beetles would be much less nasty work, but I'd be afraid of them getting loose in my house and eating up my leather couch or various skin mounts.

I also have skulls of javelina, fox, wild hog, deer, nilgai, blackbuck and pronghorn antelope, whitetail and axis deer, fox, armadillo, coyote, and bobcat. Sometimes I pull good horse and cow skulls with teeth from the rivers for comparative anatomy purposes to assist in my fossil ID.