Natural Method of Roe Skull Preparation...

BunnyDoom

Well-Known Member
I've done a trophy before and am very pleased with the results, however a couple of weeks ago I shot a cull buck with deformed antlers... I was going to boil it up as an interesting one to look however mine and my girlfriends birthday's got in the way and it ended up sat in the garage for a week in a bucket!

As you can imagine it was crawling with maggots. I managed to hold my nose and skin it, and got most of the flesh off the face and out the mouth before deciding I couldn't do any more. I wasn't keen on boiling it because of the inevitable smell in the house, so I decided I might try and see if the maggots will do the job for me... so far after a few days the eyes are gone and some of the remaining face flesh...

Does anyone have any experience with the "leave it and see what happens method"?!?

Is there a stage at which I should just bite the bullet and boil it up?

I've heard of people burying them before - does that actually work?
 
As an experiment I once buried a head up to the coronets.
After a couple of month lifted it out and the creepy crawlies had actually done a very good job.
Only needed bleaching.
You have to protect the antler as the elements (rain/sun) will bleach them and wash all the colour out.

I certainly wouldnt advocate this method for a trophy head but if its just a bog standard head for hanging on your shed etc then this is a lazy way of doing it.

ATB

CVK
 
wouldnt bury it personally.
I have left red skulls, rough cut to remove the bulk of the skull hanging in a stable. its out of the elements and the maggots make quick work of the flesh leaving a few tufts around the pedicle to cut off.
its more than a week though and by the end it wont smell as there will be nothing to be rotting
 
Apart from practices which are illegal, I think that leaving deer heads to rot is possibly the most unprofessional thing a stalker can do. If you didn't want to keep it then dispose of it with the rest of the gralloch, if you want to keep it then treat it with the respect that it deserves. Plenty of good advice on here on how to do it properly.

It's no good saying that you don't have time, how do you think professional stalkers manage doing several each week on top of stalking twice a day?

JC
 
bit harsh.
we are not advocating chucking them on the road side!
perfectly natural way of cleaning a skeleton or skull without the cost or environmental impact of wasting energy and disposing of gallons of used chemicals
 
Apart from practices which are illegal, I think that leaving deer heads to rot is possibly the most unprofessional thing a stalker can do. If you didn't want to keep it then dispose of it with the rest of the gralloch, if you want to keep it then treat it with the respect that it deserves. Plenty of good advice on here on how to do it properly.

It's no good saying that you don't have time, how do you think professional stalkers manage doing several each week on top of stalking twice a day?

JC

Well that's ok then coz I'm not a professional - it's a leisure activity :D

As for respect - how is leaving it out in my garden for the food chain to benefit from less respectful than putting it in a saucepan and boiling the brains out? Is there some sort of funeral/ceremony of respect that I should have been doing in my kitchen that I didn't know about? You're hilairious JC! :D

What do you do with your gralloch's? Personally mine get left somewhere discreet for the corvids and foxes, along with the head if I don't want it... so sorry but I just don't get your point.

Stalkers manage it because it's their job and they get paid for it - I work 12 hour days regularly and had unavoidable commitments outside of work. If it were edible meat then I'd agree it's disrespectful, but something that most people would just ditch or feed to the dogs is surely ok to reclaim later?!
 
p.s. Thanks to Bewsher and CVK for your answers - did you have any problems with wildlife trying to take things off? I have a lot of seaguls and cats near me and have had entire pelts disappear before!
 
I have just completed a skull using dermestis beetle and larvae, being honest it has taken a long long long long zzzzzzz time, I skinned it all back and emptied the cranial cavity to help prior to introducing the betles, job has turned out ok, but time is the issue, Skull is in good condition.

In all honesty boiling the head is the preferred method for me. it has its fall backs if you over do it but is more hygenic and no bad smells etc.
 
I've done well with burying and then bleaching - though mainly with small carnivore skulls.

One thing to be very careful of is the acidity of the soil. Acid soils appear to render the bone very brittle if left too long.

Beetles (like burying beetles and museum beetles) work very well as well.
 
Put all mine in the top of the compost heap, leave the lid ajar and in the summer in a couple of weeks all done. Boil off outside usng a camping stove, add a bit of vanish, and sorted. Will post some pics when I get a chance.

D
 
Put all mine in the top of the compost heap, leave the lid ajar and in the summer in a couple of weeks all done. Boil off outside usng a camping stove, add a bit of vanish, and sorted. Will post some pics when I get a chance.

D

In a compost bin? Does that affect the antlers at all? This one's no trophy but they're pretty weird looking which is why I kept it and didn't bother with usual methods! Would be great to see the pics!
 
mine was in hung a stable.
cool and dry but hanging so no mice/squirrels could eat it. (I have a great picture of a Red Squirrel chowing down on an antler we left on a wall!)

a bucket underneath to catch the maggots, you could probably befriend some fisherman with the by products!

I favour hanging as there is no wet surface to discolour the antler.


I also didnt bleach the last one I did.
The benefit of natural stripping is the discoloured water that stains the bone is not used and the maggots do a good job of cleaning all blood off the bone


049.jpg
 
mine was in hung a stable.
cool and dry but hanging so no mice/squirrels could eat it. (I have a great picture of a Red Squirrel chowing down on an antler we left on a wall!)

a bucket underneath to catch the maggots, you could probably befriend some fisherman with the by products!

I favour hanging as there is no wet surface to discolour the antler.


I also didnt bleach the last one I did.
The benefit of natural stripping is the discoloured water that stains the bone is not used and the maggots do a good job of cleaning all blood off the bone


049.jpg

That looks awesome Bewsher! Given me an idea for a coat rack too! :)

Mine will have to hang in my garage as land with stables isn't on the cards for a good few years yet! Laundry's done in there soo so GF's gonna love me! :p
 
BD: I haven't had the opportunity yet to prep a head myself for mounting. However, a keeper that I stalked with recently had a head of an unfortunate beast that had perished on the A90 in a road accident - he was using the method of leaving it to dry naturally, out of reach of scavengers.
I have a lovely 6-point on my permission that I hope will be my first trophy to prepare.:D
 
BD: I haven't had the opportunity yet to prep a head myself for mounting. However, a keeper that I stalked with recently had a head of an unfortunate beast that had perished on the A90 in a road accident - he was using the method of leaving it to dry naturally, out of reach of scavengers.
I have a lovely 6-point on my permission that I hope will be my first trophy to prepare.:D

Good luck with it! If you're going to send it to CIC for weighing check with them what they want as I nearly made the mistake of cutting mine!

I had a nice gold (and my best roe to date) at the start of the season - found a lot of helpful stuff on youtube. Peroxide was easy enough to get hold of, the thing I struggled with was getting all the brains and nasal gunk out - in the end I found some 12" surgical tweasers that I used to use to feed my snakes when I had them. They were perfect for the stubborn bits! :)
 
I have just completed a skull using dermestis beetle and larvae, being honest it has taken a long long long long zzzzzzz time, I skinned it all back and emptied the cranial cavity to help prior to introducing the betles, job has turned out ok, but time is the issue, Skull is in good condition.

In all honesty boiling the head is the preferred method for me. it has its fall backs if you over do it but is more hygenic and no bad smells etc.

did you dry out the head prior to giving it to your colony, as they work much faster on dry tissue, also how big is your colony as for a deer head you might need a well established colony?
i agree that boiling (or rather simmering) is the best technique for prep and skulls can be done in just a few hours.
and lah lah lah lah i cant hear you ! as a keen skull collector hate to think that they are left out in the field (all skulls are good skulls) :( lol.
 
Well, fair enough, looks like I'm in a minority. I'm going to sound like my Grandad now but, I remember a time when people (not just stalkers) were proud to do a job properly not brag about how slackly you can do something and still just about get away with it.

It's probably irrelevant as there seems to be a widespread hatred of professional stalkers on this site these days but, how would you feel if you had shot a buck as a paying guest and the stalker said 'well done sir, I'll get the trophy to you in about three months when it's finished rotting behind my kennels and I've had a go at bleaching it'?

Like I say, not worth worrying about, happy to admit that times have changed and I appear to have been left behind.

JC
 
First time of using the beetle, had a reasonable size colony, to be honest I didn't know what to expect, head is coming along nicely, but the time is longer than I thought, dermestis are carrion feeders and as such I thought I would let them carry on as normal, also found ham beetle larvae in the head prior to putting dermestis in the container, these are a common source of food for dermestis beetle in the larvae stage, if they sorted the hide larvae out first that may have slowed the demolition of the head, the head was left in a natural state throughout.

Interesting to see the natural way of things developing, but there's gotta be a better non smelly way. :tiphat: than beetles.
 
Well, fair enough, looks like I'm in a minority. I'm going to sound like my Grandad now but, I remember a time when people (not just stalkers) were proud to do a job properly not brag about how slackly you can do something and still just about get away with it.

It's probably irrelevant as there seems to be a widespread hatred of professional stalkers on this site these days but, how would you feel if you had shot a buck as a paying guest and the stalker said 'well done sir, I'll get the trophy to you in about three months when it's finished rotting behind my kennels and I've had a go at bleaching it'?

Like I say, not worth worrying about, happy to admit that times have changed and I appear to have been left behind.

JC

Well I'm with you and each to his own I suppose, but can't see the attraction in leaving them to nature it takes a lot longer for them to be clean than a lot of people realise, and you usually still have to boil them and bleach them
so don't really see the point.

It does not take long to boil and clean a head, spare a thought for me I have close on 200 to do each year.
 
Well, fair enough, looks like I'm in a minority. I'm going to sound like my Grandad now but, I remember a time when people (not just stalkers) were proud to do a job properly not brag about how slackly you can do something and still just about get away with it.

It's probably irrelevant as there seems to be a widespread hatred of professional stalkers on this site these days but, how would you feel if you had shot a buck as a paying guest and the stalker said 'well done sir, I'll get the trophy to you in about three months when it's finished rotting behind my kennels and I've had a go at bleaching it'?

Like I say, not worth worrying about, happy to admit that times have changed and I appear to have been left behind.

JC

Was only joshing you JC - I agree with respecting animals, and yes if I was a professional or I was giving the head to a professional I'd be pretty disappointed to hear they were leaving it their garden for a few months to prepare it. For an amateur though on a head that is deformed it was a choice of ditch a rotting head or see if I could leave it somewhere safe for nature to do its thing.

I don't hate stalkers! I do think the majority of you guys get tarnished with the reputation that some of the rip-off idiots create though (please god let this not turn into another rate-debate) :)
 
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