Just took mine out and got it in the sun. Some teeth fell out of the top half but i got them all and will superglue them in.. Also got the bottom half of the jaw also!.. Its all drying. Its just a spike so im not gonna put up a pic and embarrass myself Even though i don't hunt deer just hogs.. lol
Good thing is it looks like natural bone not a bleached look.. Well see how it looks when its all dried out. The back of the skull where the spine attaches has some tough under skin that i will have to dremel off but otherwise its looking good.! Hey its my first deer so i wanted something to remember it by. Actually my first deer was a doe that i found later with a bear eating it so i never got that one. But its going! hopefully this coming season on the new lease ill get something mountable.
I'm new to this but I started on my hog head yesterday. Threw it in a large pot and boiled for a few hours. Most of the meat and all of the hide fell right off. Some teeth did come out and of course the jaws separated, no big deal. Next, I put the skull into a small crab trap I had and laid it on top of an ant pile. I check it a few hours later and it was completely covered with ants. This morning I checked again and it's about 80% clean of all meat and cartilage and still covered in ants. I'd suspect that it will be pretty well clean by tonight when I check it again. So far it's been a very easy process. Next I plan to soak it in some water/peroxide solution to lighten it up.
After boiling
Going into crab trap
After 8 hrs on the ant pile
I did a lot of reading on the taxidermy.net forum earlier on how to do the euro process. I, personally, prefer the maceration process of putting it in a tub of water and forgetting about it.
The biggest key to this is to keep the water around 90* during the maceration process. A few days of this should have most everything off the bone. Be forewarned - this will stink and nearly make you gag! Change the water periodically but KEEP a small portion of the water/bacteria that has grown.
Once ALL meat is off the bone you can move to the degrease portion. The lazy man's way (my preferred method 🙂 ) is to put it in a tub with some dawn. If you can get it up to 125* it will speed the process up. Simply keep the water changed when it starts to turn murky. When you think you've got all of the oil/grease out of the skull let it dry out and you'll be able to tell any spots that need additional work.
The air compressor trick works good too. Here's a detailed 5 hour process detailed - http://www.taxidermy.net/forum/index.php/topic,125076.0.html
The hog head is going to take additional time to soak all the grease out of it.
I've done this a couple times on hogs and deer skulls. I really learned a lesson...it's worth it to ship it to a guy with a beetle farm. Good luck!
