Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska DIY Sheep Skull

Finally getting around to share this. First of all, I need to come clean and say that the avatar I've been using is not mine, but my son's that he got in August in the Wrangells.

He came back and got started on it. Basically, let the flies lay eggs and then the maggots ate most of the brain matter (Mmmmmm, brain). After that, he took my pressure washer and hosed/cleaned as much as he could. He tried calling the local taxi, who never returned the call.



Note that the nose got beat up pretty good in the tumble the ram took. I could have used another day in the drink, but we had to get back to town. At this point, YouTube was my friend. I learned that you had to remove the horns from the skull as there is connective tissue. So it did some soaking and boiling and finally got them off.



I got super duper lucky as one of the teeth fell out and I did not realize it until later. It did not fall thru the cracks in the back deck and would have been almost impossible to find if it did.

Here's the disassembly on the back of my truck - at that blueish-green stuff is from a bullet jacket. Kid shot him thru the base of the skull and the bullet lodged in the skull and horn.

That is cool.

How much soaking, boiling (and beating) did it take?

After things were disassebled there were rounds of soaking and scraping tissue from the skull. I don't know how anyone can make a living doing this stuff. And boy, the inside of those horns really stank bad. Towards the end, I boiled in OxiClean to render the fat out of the skull and whiten things up. I did not go for the full bleached look. There is still some varied coloration in the skull bone - think damacus steel.

Some bullet pics





The innerets said gluing the teeth in place was a good idea and they were rattling around quite a bit in the jawbone. I used white Elmer's glue for this.



The iternet guru's also suggested sealing the skull with a matte sealant to prevent yellowing and dust from getting into the pores of the bone, so I taped off the horn nubs (so I could get good bonding) and sprayed several layers of sealer.

I went with Bondo for reattaching the horns to the skull. I just about screwed the pooch on this step. I intended to do reattach both horns at the same time. Well the stuff started setting up faster than I wanted it was almost total disaster. In the end, one horn is about 1/4 off from where it should have been. No one really would notice but me.

Here's the final product. You can really see the bent nose in this one





This is the picure I used to create my new avatar

Great job! I like skull mounts over all others--don't know if being a cheap-ass has anything to do with it...

Appreciate the info on separating the horns.

Looks good!

Good job on a damned nice sheep!

MuskegMan: Great trophy and great work on the skull.
Good for you - notes taken by me.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Very nice. Beetles are the ticket to clean to bone.

Which horn is off a bit - the ram's left?

That is awesome!

As far as the one horn being 1/4" off,
if you didn't know it, you'd never know it.

Very nice, thanks for posting.

Left out a few details that I'll add now. The very first pic of the disgusting looking skull. Forgot to add that after the kid did a rough cleaning, it hung in the shed for about 3 weeks. I was reeking to high heaven and was staring to get moldy. I knew I was going to act quickly or risk losing his trophy. Also, I don't think the sand fleas were too interested in it.

The bullet was a .30 cal 150 gr Accubond shot from a .308 Win. Distance unknown



There were many round of soaking in warm tap water with soap and very lite bleach. This was before boiling. Basically, letting maceration take place (that's meat and tissue falling off the bone). Tons of scraping by hand with a buck folder. Horns came off very easily after the first boil. Two round of boiling in the OxiClean solution.

Thanks MM.

Did the horn color lighten--or is that just the pics?

Horns don't, and shouldn't, go in bleaching solution. Just differences in the ambient lighting when the pictures were taken.

I've got one soaking right now, but it doesn't seem to be helping much.

These guys have a pretty good "how-to" for anyone that's interested.

http://www.provingtrailadventures.com/articles/proving-trail-blog/45-european-mount-diy.html

I count 9 rings, is that correct?

Couple of tips... never boil, ever. Just rot in water.

Don't scrape bone, just let it rot more... longer... let nature work

Blow off with pressure washer, I think mine is only 1600 psi. cheap harbor freight one... as needed.

Add only a little bleach to each bucket of water to keep funk from growing.

Once I"m done cleaning horn cores I put them in a freezer, so they don't dry out and shrink down..

Bleach, by far the easiest way is 35% hydrogen peroxide if you can get it. Liquid. Small plastic container, and I put in a skull and as many rocks as I can at the same time, to take up space so it takes less HP....this stuff is strong, wear glasses and gloves. Should take about a day to come clean.

I've done it in 3% but it takes days and days and often really never turns nice and white, IF thats what you are after.

I've done the hair stuff route... it can work, but its major PITA compared to liquid soak.

PM if ever wanting to ask questions.. I no longer do this for a living.... but did for many years. I don't know it all by any means.

If I had my choice and was going to do lots, I'd go to beetles though.

I pay a beetle guy here, but beetles are probably hard to come by in AK.

Very nice result!

I believe it was aged at 8.5 yrs.

Didn't realize you had a previous life. I don't know how you can make decent money and it'd be near impossible to please everyone 100% with their trophy.

Jeff
Local guy here maintains a colony. He's done a couple skulls for me.

Its why I"m an inspector now..... had to pay bills.

Good to know RE dermestids! I'll have to remember that for the future.

I know several folks with colonies...

Anch would be more convenienter for Jeff than Soldotna.

Super cool

No bettle colony is going to match a shrimp pot...

hard to compare anyway. LOL. I'll have to remember that.

But beetles, dermestids, are the museum required standard, not shrimp pots....

On top of doing an equal, boil free job you do not have to mess with any predrying to keep from killing or smelling your colony...

MM (L),

Heck of a nice job! And a gorgeous sheep. Typical Wrangell flair (or is it flare?).

Thanks for sharing the pictures and process with us.

Whats the time line on this working? Pot in the water "baited" 24 hours? Just curious.

Like I said never even heard of it.

We hear of putting in ant nests down here. Thats the biggest joke ever....

A day-long soak with a couple pulls to remove the shrimp will leave the brains gone, everything nibbled down to bone and the turbinate processes absolutely clean and in prefect shape.

Degreasing is usually not needed, but always a good idea... I also rinse in freshwater for quite a while.

The sand fleas are the primary nibblers, BTW.

Cool, I'll have to google sand fleas...

Fresh water soak? a week? Dawn in it or just soaking?

Degrease via coleman fuel or other method?

Always fun to see what others are doing.

I will hit it with soapy water a couple times, but not too serious because there is not usually much fat. Bears get the white gas.

I think it turned out great. Good job.

That bullet is pretty wild. I put a marmot skull in a crab pot, worked real well, just need to make sure the teeth can't get get loose.

When I did my cougar skull I used a method that they used at the Smithsonian at one time (learned it from a guy who had worked there). You put it in a bucket of warm water with horse turd. The water needs to be at about 98F. I used a fish tank heater. Each day you are supposed to drain off half the water and replace it with fresh. In 3 days I had a clean skull. There were still a few stringers here and there, but the brain, eyes, gums, everything else was gone. Does stink though! The bacteria in the turd eats it all. Down side is that it is hard to heat the water in the winter, and you don't want it inside.

I used to be a supplier for UAF back in the day for skeleton cleanup.

Glad you finally admitted to being full of manure . . .

Bingo!

Is that where your spine went?

What was left of it anyway.

GFY.