Dermestid beetle use...?

[AJMD429]

Anyone here use them for deer skulls...??

We did a few years ago and I think only bought $50 or so worth of beetles (colony of 600 maybe), but I've read that you need at least 25,000 to do a deer skull. That gets pricey, but I'd assume after awhile the beetles would increase their number if you care for the colony properly.

[Sixgun]

Doc,
I may be too "old school" for items that you suggested but I've always taken the "poor mans route" instead of the guy who needs it done in 2 weeks. I've done lots of deer heads, fox skulls, and even several elk just by driving a spike about a foot long through the eye ball and into the bottom of a fence post to keep other critters from dragging it away and so the ants and maggots can do what nature intended them to do.

Although I've never done it, a piece of rat wire around the whole gig, staked in, will add insurance to critter theft.

A few months and some attention to detail....provided by you, will give ya a sparking clean skull.---6

[Rusty]

I've done what Sixgun talks about years ago when a gopher turtle that had given up. I took the shell and put it in a rabbit pen I put over an ant hill. A couple of months later it was clean.

[cas]

I cleaned a deer skull once by putting it in an eel pot and placing it out in the harbor for a couple weeks. The fish , eels and the crabs did a nice job cleaning it, but eeeeeewwww.... that rotten harbor bottom stink took months and months to go away.

[Old No7]

You'd have to Google it, but one time at a veterinary conference there was a booth which specialized in cleaning and preparing animal skulls and complete skeletons; and for a small fee you could ship them a cleaned * skull -- and feed all their beetles.

They promised to send back a clean, white skull without any of the issues (such as loose teeth or lost bones) that boiling a skull can cause.

... * "Clean" meant no fur, fat or muscle, so you had to cut off as much as you could with a knife before shipping it...

The display had a life-size Brown Bear skeleton which was really impressive -- and sorta creepy too!

Good luck.

Old No7

[m.wun]

I sent a deer skull to a place in Moore Ok. called Skulls Unlimited. You just freeze the piece and send ,it couple months go by and they send a perfectly white cleaned skull back. I think I paid around 130$. LOOK them up on you tube, interesting family buisness. You can buy human skulls from them!