While rinsing them off for degreasing I took the teeth out of this little possum

Degreasing update I’m out of time‼️

I’m leaving the area in a week for an indeterminate amount of time and I don’t want to leave them here so. Today was the last grease bath, I’ve rinsed everything and I’m going to start a peroxide bath after a final water dunk to leech soap out.

The soap smell is definitely not my favorite so I’m glad to be done with it, I think they’re degreased enough to be acceptable, and hopefully not end up too patchy in whitening

In other news this is how the rib connectors are doing

While replacing my degreaser, I dried the bones in the sun to check how much grease they actually still had. Can we talk about how gorgeous and intact this skull is. First and also the deer skull ever.

This deer was a roadkill, and now that I can really inspect the bones it’s obviously not without damage, most obviously this piece of the pelvis is shattered :(

I’m not quite sure if I even have all of the ribs but I did fish out these “connector” bones, I’m not sure the actual name, but they bridge the gap between the sternum and the ribs proper, and they REEK!! They’re a more porous bone and the soap mix is stuck in there. Let them dry in the sun and praying the smell goes away so I can keep them.

I’ve been degreasing a deer in two separate buckets

Third photo has the vertebrae and ribs, this bucket had a significant amount of anaerobic bacteria, but the grease mixture has cleared up outside of a blue tinge from the soap. Due to the bacteria, I’m having a hard time telling if this means that bucket is ready for whitening.

The first and second photos are from the bucket with everything else, and the water is still a little cloudy so it still needs work. I would appreciate if anyone could estimate how long that’ll take.

After procrastinating dumping the degreasing buckets because it’s hot as the devils taint out, I finally did it today. Despite my heart rate disagreeing.

Good news though!! The anaerobic bacteria (black stuff on the ribs and spine) has gotten greyer, which hopefully means it’s resolving. As for the smell, it’s not as bad!? especially after refilling the degreaser. I checked the teeth to try to make sure they weren’t still fleshy, and concluded they move enough that they’re probably good (as well as the skull not reeking lmao)