cool find

RescueRiley

RescueRiley

Joined
Mar 22, 2006
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went out for a walk in with my bro in pretty dense watershed area today and found a really awesome snapping turtle shell something had eatem most of the meat...but there was a good part of the spine still attatched, the seal pup made quick work of it It's still got some clingly meat portions Was wondering if anyone had anythoughts on how to get rid of these...it's stinking up my car and the wife wont let me bring it in till I get it cleaned up...planning on giving it a nice protective coat of varnish when done but I'm no expert, and am open to suggestions.
 
Boil it till all the meat falls off. This is what I do to the deer skulls I have rather than send them to a taxidermist. Boil it and bleach it. You can dump it in an ant mound but it takes to long and other animals will drag it off. So go have a fun day chopping wood and building a campfire then put a kettle over it and boil away. Once the meat softens you can pick it out easy with a stick. If you boil it to long the shell can come apart so try to not over boil it. This takes a considerable amount of wood to boil it for a few hours so get a goos supply unless the wife will let you make turtle soup on the stove :).
 
ashtxsniper said:
Boil it till all the meat falls off. This is what I do to the deer skulls I have rather than send them to a taxidermist. Boil it and bleach it. You can dump it in an ant mound but it takes to long and other animals will drag it off. So go have a fun day chopping wood and building a campfire then put a kettle over it and boil away. Once the meat softens you can pick it out easy with a stick. If you boil it to long the shell can come apart so try to not over boil it. This takes a considerable amount of wood to boil it for a few hours so get a goos supply unless the wife will let you make turtle soup on the stove :).
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I have done this also and it works well...I have heard of (but haven't tried with turtle) burying it in rock salt for a week.
 
Down here in the south fire ants do a pretty good job pretty quick. The best I have ever seen is with flesh eating beetles, I think they are called dermistid(sp) beetles, some taxidermists keep them and they will strip a skull to bare white bone in no time. Chris
 
runningboar said:
Down here in the south fire ants do a pretty good job pretty quick. The best I have ever seen is with flesh eating beetles, I think they are called dermistid(sp) beetles, some taxidermists keep them and they will strip a skull to bare white bone in no time. Chris
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I have never had a lot of luck with fire ants and there are tons of them here. I think they would ratcher eat me than the flesh on the skull.
 
I did a pig skull and was happy with the results, I stirred them up and half buried the skull in the mound, they cleaned it up pretty good. Chris
 
My problem seems that dogs, coyotes, rats, cats, and various other animals like to dcrag them off and knaw on them. I have to tie a rope to it to keep it around.
 
ashtxsniper said:
My problem seems that dogs, coyotes, rats, cats, and various other animals like to dcrag them off and knaw on them. I have to tie a rope to it to keep it around.
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Put a bucket with a cinder block or two on top of it that might help. I did it inside a 4" welded wire fence, nothing messed with it but I can see how it could be a problem. Chris
 
Such a simple solution I cant believe I didnt think of that. Thanks Chris I will have to try the ant thing again with your technique. :thumbup:
 
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