Adventure

Juvenile and Adult California Ground Squirrels

Happy Valentine's Day to my favorite beings, animals ❤

Of course us vultures love our living animals as much as the dead ones, so here's some highlights of living animals around my property caught by game cameras! We've had a little bit of everything come through here and the only wild animal we haven't captured is a mountain lion, though I'm grateful they haven't come through here yet!

Lita had broken her sternum at some point which healed well before her death. I have to wonder if this contributed to or was the cause of her first decline about a year before she died. I had found her in the usual sick chicken position, hunched over and unable to move much, and after isolating her and feeding some vitamins and meds she improved quickly and was back to her normal self for a while. About a year later she declined again in a similar way, but after a couple days of treatment she passed overnight. It's heartbreaking knowing she was in pain and I'm glad she's no longer suffering in this world.

So... I hope you can help but it's fine if you cant...

My cat passed and I've buried him and now the bones are practically without flesh (the skin mummified) can I macerate the bones to clean it? If so, it'll stink less?

I intend to white it if peroxide after

Thanks in advance

Hello! My condolences for your cat <3 You can definitely macerate the remaining skin but it'll definitely still be stinky! Sometimes if just the mummified skin is left you might be able to just rehydrate it by soaking for several minutes or so and pull it away from the bones. If the skin is really tough to pull away then you can proceed with macerating!

I have a related question: a lot of people seem to use Dawn soap specifically, but I cannot find that in Australia for the life of me! Is there anything Dawn does better than standard dish detergent? And if so, does anyone (you or followers) know any easy-to-get alternatives?

I've been cleaning bones using cold water maceration for... a decade now (scary how time flies oof). Personally, I have always used warm water and laundry powder for just 1-2 days after maceration. I haven't had any overly greasy critters yet so that's worked fine for me! It also makes everything smell like clean clothes lmao

Thanks again :D

Thank you, I'm so glad the last ask was helpful!! I think most dish soaps advertised to help clean grease/oil/fats should work similar to Dawn! I believe Dawn became popular because of it's advertising being used to clean oil from animals caught in an oil spill, so it was gentle enough for baby ducks which means its gentle on bones too! In reality most dish soaps are probably very similar, safe and effective. I don't know if some soaps might include bleach so that would just be something to try avoiding if so.

Oftentimes maceration can actually be helpful in degreasing at the same time it defleshes too! I've also heard of some people using enzymatic detergent for dual macerating/degreasing - the enzymes are supposed to help with the bacteria that eats away the flesh and can help dissolve grease/fat too. But I've also heard some cons to this method, detergents tend to prevent/hinder bacteria growth and the enzymes may negatively affect the collagen in the bone.

Hello!! Cleaning bones can be broken down into 3 stages - removing flesh/meaty bits, degreasing, and whitening. Depending on the bones you've found you may need to do all of these, some of them, or nothing at all!

If there's still fleshy or meaty bits on the bones, macerating (soaking in warm water for weeks/months) or burial (shallow burial in loose soil for weeks/months) are two common ways to easily clean the flesh without much hands-on work. If there's only a tiny bit of ligaments or flesh on the bone it can be easier to just scrape it off by hand.

If the bones have grease/fat inside or discoloration then degreasing is next - most dish soaps designed for grease and household ammonia can be used for this. Degreasing can take months and months depending on how much fat is in the bone so have patience with this step! Use warm water with soap or ammonia and change out the water when it becomes discolored/cloudy. When you think they might be done, allow them to dry fully for a few days to see if there might be any more grease left before moving on to the next step.

Finally, for sanitizing and whitening simple 3% hydrogen peroxide can be used. Soak the bones for a little bit if you just want to sanitize without changing the color much (maybe 30 minutes to an hour) or keep bones in peroxide for a few days or more until they have whitened nicely. The bones will appear darker when they're wet so let them dry fully to see how white they actually will be! If you like the natural color of the bone it's really not mandatory to use peroxide so you can leave it as-is.

Most importantly never boil or bleach bones, these will cause irreparable damage to the bone. Hot water from the tap or water warmed by the sun is perfect to use and cold water can also be used, it just takes longer for macerating/degreasing.

Many bones found in nature might already be quite clean and don't need much more - you could give them a soapy scrub to remove surface dirt and a quick bath in peroxide to remove deeper dirt and sanitize.

Bones don't need much caring for after they've been cleaned, if you'll keep them out on display then an occasional dusting might be needed but otherwise they are pretty much care-free!