question about taxidermy, please help from young woman! details below?

Question

i love taxidermy, i found a deer skull with antlers in the forest, its been months for it to fully have the flesh decay off it, it just have a tiny bit of flesh left on it, usually deer skulls with antlers left in the forest, the antlers start to rot, how long till the antlers loose color and start to rot? i want to pick up the skull before the antlers loose color.

Answer 1

Taxidermy is usually done when the flesh & skin is still on the body not when there is nothing left except bones!

If you just want the antlers then go cut them off. If you want the skull with the antlers then take it somewhere and clean it off.

What you mean please help from young woman???

Answer 2

What you are trying to prepare is called a European mount. Antlers and bones take a very long time to rot, sometimes hundreds of years, but the thing is that when antlers are left in the woods is that mice and rabbits eat them as a source of calcium and protein. If you are worried about the antlers losing their color , you can always stain them back to their original color by using wood stain.

Answer 3

Pick it up now, put the skull up to the base of the anthers in a bucket or basin of common, household bleach. Leave it until the bone is bleached a clean white. Rinse it off with fresh water. Allow it to dry (if possible in the sun). Rub boiled linseed oil on the anthers only.

Purchase a skull mount, or make one from a nice piece of board. Rub boiled linseed oil on the antlers as need. Voila, you have a nice homemade skull mount.

H

Answer 4

My hunting partner Euro Mounts all his heads. If you left it in the woods, go get it before someone else takes it and you are dissappointed, If you want to get the rest of the meat off the skull you will want to boil it. I can pretty much gurantee you that the bulk of the brains are probably still in the skull. Again you will need to boil the skull to loosen all the flesh and brains. You can then blow the "gunk" out with an air compressor. Yes, it makes a mess. Watch out with the small bones in the nose. They need to be removed and then glued back in place. Dry out the skull and if you want you can bleach it out to make it starchy white.
good luck and Godspeed

Answer 5

Do what Up North says. But to bleach it out do not and I repeat DO NOT use household bleach, it will make the skull powdery and rough. To save time, here is a website that I used when I first started doing it, but I use powdered bleach that you get at the beauty supply store and 40% proxide also from the beauty supply store. www.bowhunting.net/taxidermy/europeanskull.html