quick skull cleaning for traveling

[seacow]

Does anyone have a recommendation for the quickest/easiest way to clean out a skull for traveling over state lines (CWD requirements)? This would be for a skull you'd want to euro mount when you get home.

 

[Hippie Steve]

Most states require you to remove the spinal cord and brain matter. Just skin the head and remove the eyes and brain and leave that material and the spinal cord in the field and you should be good. But do check the regulations for the state or contact their CWD Technicians or Biologists. Hope that helps.

 

[BH2010]

If you have access to a garden hose, you can use a small diameter piece of pipe or tubing to flush out the brain through the foramen magnum (the hole at the base of the skull). Insert the tube, spray water, rotate and wiggle pipe and ideally a mostly-intact brain will slide right out.

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[wyosteve]

Small stove and a big metal pot. Boil for a while and it should pretty much clean things off.

 

[Bcleck90]

Interested to hear opinions on this also. I’ve been doing my own euro mounts here at home for the last few years but I don’t see how you do it quickly on the road. It takes me a few hours easily with a small pressure washer, boiling, etc.

Are most of you guys just getting it good enough to legally travel like @grabar venado bura 227" mentioned above?

 

[Legend]

Do the best you can with a knife. Then roll into a car wash and spend $2 on the pressure washer. Good to go.

 

[ElDiablito]

The western states that I’m familiar with require ALL meat and tissue to be removed from skulls and skull plates. So, hose and pressure washer “cleaning” wouldn’t even come close to legal.

Boiling is the only quick method I know to use.

 

[BH2010]

The western states that I’m familiar with require ALL meat and tissue to be removed from skulls and skull plates. So, hose and pressure washer “cleaning” wouldn’t even come close to legal.

Boiling is the only quick method I know to use.

What states are those? It makes no sense to have to remove all the meat from a skull. And how do they enforce that? I'm sure there are lots of intact, skin-on skulls that roll into taxidermist shops all over the west.

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[ElDiablito]

What states are those? It makes no sense to have to remove all the meat from a skull. And how do they enforce that? I'm sure there are lots of intact, skin-on skulls that roll into taxidermist shops all over the west.

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Utah, Wyoming, Nevada, Arizona. Here are a few examples:

Arizona:


Nevada:



Wyoming:

 

[BH2010]

Fair enough, but still doesn't make any sense. If you can get the brains out of your skull, what is left to transmit CWD? And how do they expect hunters to actually clean a skull to remove *all* the meat and soft tissue?

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[ElDiablito]

Fair enough, but still doesn't make any sense. If you can get the brains out of your skull, what is left to transmit CWD? And how do they expect hunters to actually clean a skull to remove *all* the meat and soft tissue?

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The brain, spine, lymph nodes, tonsils and eyes all have been shown to contain CWD prions.

Boil it out.

 

[Bcleck90]

I think the safest bet is to leave it with a taxidermist and have it shipped (not my first choice but the easiest). Other than that you will need to fight wind with your burner for hours and smell like shit all the way home

 

[BH2010]

Or...skin it out, wrap it in a trash bag, and put it inside your truck and don't get pulled over. I think devoting a whole day to boil a skull is kind of ridiculous.

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[EdP]

It seems to me that, if a pressure washer won't remove it, it isn't "soft" tissue. Do the regs define soft "tissue?" Item "B" in the Wy regs posted above would suggest they are talking about meat and brain tissue and not cartilage.

 

[Mojave]

Car wash!

Has to be not so busy, or you'll deal with assholes. I wash all the brain matter down the drain.

 

[Banded_spooney]

I used to help a buddy with a beetle clean euro business and we (he still does) always recommended ppl skin the head and clean out the brains then just hit the car wash on the way home. Dozens (hundreds???) of guys/ skulls and Never had a problem even with guys going through bug station entering California.

we rent a cabin in Colorado and I stay with a friend when I’m in Wyoming and I always just use a pressure nozzle on a regular garden hose. Never an issue.

 

[Mule3006Elk]

Raptorazor
Pressure washer
Pot/water/boil

 

[long hunter]

Im with BH on the skin it, car wash maybe, wrap it and keep your mouth shut kind of deal.

 

[Mikido]

Im with BH on the skin it, car wash maybe, wrap it and keep your mouth shut kind of deal.

Third.

 

[wytx]

I have yet to see any state enforce the ALL meat removed, pressure washing works well. The cartilage does not have to be removed as stated above.
A piece of wire into the brain cavity and then spin it will break up the gray matter and let it fall out, the lining in there is harder to get out though.