Antelope Skull Maceration

[treillw]

Want to macerate an antelope skull for my first time. At what point do the antelope horns usually fall off? It would be a lot easier to macerate if you could throw the whole skull in a bucket.

Any tips?

Thanks!

 

[MuleyFever]

My last ones pulled off after about an hour of boiling if I remember right. Could you boil it until they pull off first?

 

[treillw]

My last ones pulled off after about an hour of boiling if I remember right. Could you boil it until they pull off first?

I've heard that boiling kills the bacteria that makes maceration work, but I'm no expert.......

 

[treillw]

Anyone know of a decent cheap souvide machine?

 

[ElDiablito]

I don’t macerate - I boil (not quite boil - 200 degrees or so). Way easier. Yeah, you should be able to twist the sheaths off after maybe 30-40 min if the head is fresh.

 

[ElDiablito]

Anyone know of a decent cheap souvide machine?

You could use a crock pot if you want to really speed up the maceration.

 

[ericacymcdonald]

Anyone know of a decent cheap souvide machine?

Not sure what a sous vide machine cost but I'm doing a deer skull right now using a fish tank heater and a 5 gallon bucket.

 

[cnelk]

If you put the antelope skull in a black plastic bag and set it out in the sun a few hours, they will sweat and pop right off.

 

[Carlin59]

Had an interesting learning experience this year. Did the black bag trick to get the sheaths to pop off. But, I didn’t have the time to sous vide then skull so just left it in the bag for a month. This was unskinned, lower jaw on, no prep work done beside pulling sheaths. It stunk bad for a few weeks but then the smell died down. I checked it after a little less than a month, and the fly larvae had it almost perfectly down to the bone. Basically like beetles do, except no burying. Just neglected it in a black trash bag in the sun for a month. Really saved a lot of time on skinning/picking away at the back of the skull during the sous vide process

 

[Solm]

Put them in with horns on. Should slip right off after a couple of days. Then put back in maceration cont to finish. That's how we do them

 

[treillw]

Had an interesting learning experience this year. Did the black bag trick to get the sheaths to pop off. But, I didn’t have the time to sous vide then skull so just left it in the bag for a month. This was unskinned, lower jaw on, no prep work done beside pulling sheaths. It stunk bad for a few weeks but then the smell died down. I checked it after a little less than a month, and the fly larvae had it almost perfectly down to the bone. Basically like beetles do, except no burying. Just neglected it in a black trash bag in the sun for a month. Really saved a lot of time on skinning/picking away at the back of the skull during the sous vide process

Will a 5 gallon bucket work for a sous vide container? Don't know how hot these things get and don't want to melt something.

Looks like amazon has sous vide machines for $40. Probably works better than a fish tank heater.

Thanks!

 

[Carlin59]

Will a 5 gallon bucket work for a sous vide container? Don't know how hot these things get and don't want to melt something.

Looks like amazon has sous vide machines for $40. Probably works better than a fish tank heater.

Thanks!

A five gallon bucket will work fine and won’t melt at 140 degrees. If you can find a more oval or rectangular bucket it will work better for deer and elk down the road, but antelope skull is small enough that even a round 5 gallon bucket will work.

 

[treillw]

I got the head cleaned up after a few days in the sous vide machine with oxy clean. It has the below pictured orangish stains on it. Its been in three year old peroxide for a few days to whiten it and its not going away. Pretty surprising. What's happening?

Also, do you do anything special to clean up the insides of the horns, after they are removed?

Thanks!

 

[ElDiablito]

Let it dry and see if those spots disappear. If they don’t, I’d get some fresh 40v peroxide. I scrub out the inside of the horn sheaths with a toothbrush, hot water and dawn.

 

[butcherboy]

Those look like bloodstains. You need to degrease in dawn soap and ammonia then whiten after it dries and sits for a while to see if any more stains appear. Scrub inside and outside of horn sheaths with dawn soap and either ammonia or pinesol works really well.

 

[wytx]

Degrease it, with Dawn.

 

[Lawnboi]

I got the head cleaned up after a few days in the sous vide machine with oxy clean. It has the below pictured orangish stains on it. Its been in three year old peroxide for a few days to whiten it and its not going away. Pretty surprising. What's happening?

Also, do you do anything special to clean up the insides of the horns, after they are removed?

Thanks!

View attachment 793469

View attachment 793468

I did a dawn wash, and filled them with borax for a few weeks prior to mounting them.

Beeswax/mineral oil paste I put on wood knife handles worked good on the outside to restore the natural color.

 

[Lawnboi]

Also crack the ear tubes out with a screw driver, there’s gunk in the .

Oxy clean didn’t get it as white as I’d like. I ended up doing a few coats along with rinses of this. After 5 days my skull ended up pretty white. Rinsed it off and clear coated the skull.

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