I have been thinking about getting some beatles to use for European mts. and i was wondering if anyone would by chance be able to answer some Q's for me?

1. How many can you put in one 20 Gal. tank

2. How often do you have to feed them

3. do you have to put anything else in there tank like dirt cardboard or wood chips

Why not use the Maceration process. That way you don’t have to worry about keeping bugs alive.

http://www.skull-cleaning.com/

Read the process page.

To maybe provide a more helpful answer, I would call skulltaxidermy.com and ask the question. I'm sure they can tell you.

Here are some FAQs answered:

Dermestid beetles

Just keep them contained and very far away from any shoulder mounts or you may have more European mounts than expected.

beetles are worst than kids to raise. I have had MANY colonies and they are good but alot of up keep. You will need thousands of beetles to clean skulls.,Min temp of 65,little moisture,bedding of wood chips--I plane oak,walnut aspen,etc to get the shavings. If too much moisture you will get mites and your colony is dead. With 500 beetles that youy can buy , it will that 5 months to take off so you can clean skulls.Plus the degresing and the bleaching are a different ball game. Call me if you want to know more....

www.african-montana-taxidermy.com

What are the controlled conditions of maceration?? I've never heard of that, I've just boiled my skulls before. It was too hard too make them look good and i didn't like the way it turned out usually.

I've done a couple of deer and a feral boar via maceration. Just place the skinned skull in a bucket of water (preferably at some distance from any human with a functioning set of olfactories), replenish the water periodically to keep the skull covered, and wait until done.

"Done" will occur more rapidly in warm weather, but six or eight weeks is adequate as long as the temperature remains above freezing. If you're in the part of the country where freezing temps last until late spring, just put the skull in the freezer until spring arrives, then plop it in the bucket.

BTW, I didn't want to mess with skinning the boar's head, so I just plopped it in the bucket hide and all. An extra couple of weeks in a Central Texas June took care of the hide that I didn't want to mess with. Fortunately, we live in the country and the only wifely recriminations I suffered from placing this "process" about 30 yards north of the garage were due to the very rare instances of brief summertime north winds.

quote:

Originally posted by Stonecreek:
I've done a couple of deer and a feral boar via maceration. Just place the skinned skull in a bucket of water (preferably at some distance from any human with a functioning set of olfactories), replenish the water periodically to keep the skull covered, and wait until done.

"Done" will occur more rapidly in warm weather, but six or eight weeks is adequate as long as the temperature remains above freezing. If you're in the part of the country where freezing temps last until late spring, just put the skull in the freezer until spring arrives, then plop it in the bucket.

BTW, I didn't want to mess with skinning the boar's head, so I just plopped it in the bucket hide and all. An extra couple of weeks in a Central Texas June took care of the hide that I didn't want to mess with. Fortunately, we live in the country and the only wifely recriminations I suffered from placing this "process" about 30 yards north of the garage were due to the very rare instances of brief summertime north winds.

HA HA thank you, will this get rid of the residue that the beatles leave behind

quote:

Originally posted by oakman:
beetles are worst than kids to raise. I have had MANY colonies and they are good but alot of up keep. You will need thousands of beetles to clean skulls.,Min temp of 65,little moisture,bedding of wood chips--I plane oak,walnut aspen,etc to get the shavings. If too much moisture you will get mites and your colony is dead. With 500 beetles that youy can buy , it will that 5 months to take off so you can clean skulls.Plus the degresing and the bleaching are a different ball game. Call me if you want to know more....

www.african-montana-taxidermy.com

Part of our wildlife management class training was preserving skulls which we'd clean and then soak in a mixture of bleach and water in a sealed gallon pickle jar for small skulls or a sealed drum for large skulls .The clorox/water solution causes saponification of fatty tissue(dissolves fat and flesh)& stinks like the dickens.

I buddy of my cleans them best he can, and then buries everything below the horns in potting soil for a couple months. The finished product is pretty nice.

The idea about burying them rings a bell. When I was doing scuba in the W. Indies we used to do that with conch shells. It's real hard to get them clean otherwise. A month underground and they'd come out real nice and ready to bring home to the states.

As to deer skulls, here's my non-professional method - I don't use the whole skull, but only use the top part. You have to be extra careful on cutting it. Always error on the side of keeping too much when you cut it..you can always trim some off to make it an even cut. Then it gets boiled, then the skin comes off pretty easy. Then let it sit up in an out-building several months to dry. The soft parts can be carefully cut away and by then the bone has the right shade of color and not the stark white of having been bleached, which is the other way of doing it.

I have experimented with painting gold some of the skulls and I'm thinking of trying another experiment with plating one with small colored tiles (I once saw a cape buff skull done that way and thought it was really cool). But generally I've been happy with just the naturally mellowed or aged look to the bone.

For mounting I use a different kind of wood for each shield (oak, pecan, cherry, walnut, cedar, apple, ebony, zebrawood and others) and a different shape as much as possible to each shield. You'd be surprised at some of the ideas for shapes. I've even dug up ideas for shapes from long out of business railroad emblems and logos.

The natural wood shields get a smooth sanding and an oil finish and the whole project is completed with adding a small brass plate engraved with my initials, date and place of kill.

You can certainly display a whole lot more of these on a wall than you can whole head/shoulder mounts..