I like the classic look of these mounts. What is the most effective procedure for cleaning the tissue from the skull and bleaching the bone? Chemicals or little flesh eating buggers? I'd love to hear from anyone who's had a good experience at do-it-yourself Euro mounts.

My American Bubba method is to saw the skull while it is still attached to the animal - right before I cut the skull from the neck. I then remove the bit of brain still attached to the upper part of the skull, peel the skin away, remove large bits of flesh and the eyes.

When I get home, I bury the skull in the garden - just up to the bases of the antlers and cover the antlers with something to keep the sun from bleaching them. Then, I forget about it entirely until a few weeks into spring when I start thinking about the garden and I know that flys are out. I then dig the whole thing up and hose it off. The skull is normally ready to go at this point, aside from rubbing down with bleach and water to make sure that it's clean and possibly removing little bits of dried membrane from the nasal cavity or eye sockets (they pull right off).

Then, just cut out your fancy backboard and attach the skull with a screw.

Very easy to do.

Eurepean mounts are cool !

I remove the skin from the whole skull and just set the entire thing in an ant bed!
I place a big trash can over the antlers to keep them dark (from sun bleaching)

They still have to be bleached a bit or painted white for a good clean look.

AND It does not cost $100 like the one i sent to skulls unlimited......of course it doesent look quite as good either!
John

That's an outstanding roe deer you have, Olaf.
Weidmannsheil!

I have lost count of the number of Euro style mounts I have prepared. This is the method that works best for me.

Cut off the head at the atlas joint. Skin the head, I find a thin bladed vegetable knife best for this. I like to take the head skin off in one piece then use it as a glove puppet to amuse my dogs (and myself) . After 20 minutes I get bored with the puppet thing, and in any case the dogs are bored after only 10 minutes, so then I get back to the skull.

I cut the skull with a normal wood saw from the back of the head in a dead straight line through the roots of the upper teeth to produce a long nose cut, which is my favourite. I scoop out the brains and then put the cut skull in a large pan of boiling water being careful not to put the antler under the water or they will discolour. I leave it in there for about an hour, topping up the water level when required, then take it out and let it cool. I then go to work removing every tiny piece of flesh, tube or other gunk out of the skull. It comes away very easily, but you need some patience to get in among the nasal cavity. In fact I use a 4mm wood chisel to remove all the nasal bone honey comb as you cannot see it from outside in any case. I went to my dentist as asked him for some old dental hooks and scrapers and these work a treat for getting all the fine tubes out. Keep rinsing it under the tap.

Then I submerge the skull in a plastic tub with hydrogen peroxide in. The HP solution I have at the moment is quite strong and it turned my hands white and strung like hell for a day, so if in doubt get some gloves for this part. I leave the skull in the HP for an hour them remove and rinse off. Your completed skull mount id now ready for the wall.

Point to note.

1. I have never had a skull come apart when boiling for up to one hour. Not even close.

2. With this method I can shoot the deer and have it on the wall within six hours.

I tried the other method of leaving the skull in the garden and letting nature do its thing but the first time I did this (with a freak antlered doe I wanted to keep), a fox took the skull. The second time I secured it on the garage roof. After two weeks the smell was so bad I ended up throwing it away.

If you have dogs or neighbours, or cannot be bothered to wait then I strongly suggest the boiling method.

Point to note.

1. I have never had a skull come apart when boiling for up to one hour. Not even close.

2. With this method I can shoot the deer and have it on the wall within six hours.

Hi Richard,

well you discribe the long version and this is the way it works pretty good.
but refer to your notes:

1 hour ( more or less ) means Roe deer
red deer takes longer indeed

and i add washing powder to the water, some other use washing-up liquids.

The best natural way I found was put it in anthill for few days.

Olaf

Olav

Correct! Red deer a bit longer.

I used Olaf's method worked fine on my white tail.

Does anyone out there have any pictures of interesting backboards? (carved etc?)

Gentlemen

If I have a skull that needs to be cleaned like a fox, beaver or badger. I digg it down in an ant hep they take care of it in few days, then I bleach with peroxide.

Roe deers, red stag are more easily to clean by boiling after carving of most of the meat.

A friend of mine used a turbo hot water aggregate and with low pressure to clean roe deer skulls, It worked fine. He used a thin probe line to get out the remaining meat/ brain from in side of the cranium. I have not tried this my self but his trophys looks fine.

My first redstag was cleaned by a friend of mine who works as a doctor. He used some sort of acid that they use when they clean bones and skulls from tissue during post mortem investigations. A ten minute dip and then bleach.

I think that Olavs trick is one of the easiest to do at home.

/ JOHAN

[ 08-13-2002, 22:14: Message edited by: JOHAN ]

I could recomend the method Johan's friend is using - thats about how I do it! Remove as much tissue as possible, boil for a maybe 10-20 minutes and let go with the turbo aggregate (hot or cold water works).
Bleach in peroxide and you have a great looking piece!
K9

there is an article in a back issue of varmint hunters mag. on how to do it step by step.if i had a scanner i could post it.no bleach it did say that.i do rember that much .when i get the chance to dig that issue up i will put the high points here if somebody is still looking for them,thanks,keith

When I was in Namibia, the outfitters had a interesting way of cleaning skulls. They submerged the skulls in tanks of water which were just heated by the sun. This slowingly took of the meat (the heads were already skinned) without releasing any fat into the water. My ph told me this kept the fat from moving into the skull and turning it yellow.

My heads from Namibia were also painted, but they have not yellow. Ku-dude

I'm going to post some photos of my recent African skulls in the African forum, go take a look at them.

I have two skulls in an ant nest right now. One roe and one moose skull. Maybe I should go get then they have been there fro almost 1 month now!

Johan

Johann has the right idea!

Boiling is OK if you have a hot plate in the garage and your own pot that you keep specifically for this purpose. Even then . . . God help you if the woman of the house gets a whiff of anything remotely funky coming from the garage into the house OR if you use the family cookware! I once boiled a badger skull in my house and a pronghorn at my grandmothers. The women of the house were not happy!

Invented this method a couple years ago. Get two big bushel baskets, one flesh covered wild pig skull, a couple shovels worth of soil and some water. Full a basket with two inches of soil to hold moisture, insert pig skull, tie your other bucket on top of the first bucket to keep neighborhood cats and dogs away from your trophy, moisten soil and skull through small holes in bushel baskets. Moisten every few days. In the middle of a Utah summer, you are one week away from perfectly clean pig skulls. Only stinks for a couple days (just put em over by the property line to make the neighbor wonder what (or who) you are burying in the yard ). Why pay a taxidermist to clean these things when I can get the maggots to do the work for free

JohnTheGreek

Got around to finishing three Roe heads that have been hanging about. The latest one has been in a bucket of water for about a month and came out pretty clean although it has gone very yellow. Cleaned it off with a turbo /pressure washer, but I just can't get rid of the smell..Tried boiling the clean skull and of course bleaching it, but it still smells- not so bad, but not what you would want in the house...

Also what strength Hydrogen Peroxide do you guys use? The local chemist only had 6% by volume but I am sure I have bought far stronger in the past....

Take some Clorox bleach and dip the skull in it for only about 3-5 minutes. Swish (is that a word?)the skull around to make sure the bleach gets into all crevices. Then take it out and rinse it off well.

The bleach is not to whiten the skull, but to kill the bacteria in the bone that is causing the smell. Then put the skull into the peroxide for the whitening.

When I owned my taxidermy shop I would buy hydrogen peroxide in bulk at ladies beauty supply stores. It may be called "developer" and can be bought in levels as high as 45%. It's pretty cheap there, also.

Good luck!

JDS

JDS,

I have tried the Clorex thing and also tried soaking the whole lot in hot soapy water too.....
When dry, the smell actually seems to be coming from the antlers rather than the skull...I think I will have to wash them with something to kill the bugs too although I do not want to bleach them.....

Regards,

Pete

[ 10-04-2002, 02:57: Message edited by: Pete E ]

Pete,

If you're getting a smell, there HAS to be some bacteria somewhere.

Dipping antlers and all in Clorox won't bleach the antlers if it is not left to soak. Since the antlers are not as porous as bone, dip and swish the antlers for about 30 seconds and rinse well.

Keep in mind, though, that all color on the antlers is ON the antler and not IN the antler. Whether you use bleach or water some of the color may come off of the antlers.

Good luck!

JDS

Pete

do your antlers by any chance still have the velvet on them?

rh