So you’ve tagged a respectable animal, and the big tasks of packing out, skinning, and butchering are done. Next comes the familiar dilemma of how to commemorate your kill. Maybe the price tag or a lack of wall space talks you out of a shoulder mount. Or, maybe you’re just a minimalist at heart. Regardless, a European skull mount is a great low-cost alternative to preserve the memory of your hunt for a lifetime.
Behind a skull cap for antlers or horns, a Euro mount is the simplest DIY option for any hunter looking to add a piece to their trophy room. But, if you want a mount that is as clean, strong, and sparkling white as anything you’d pick up from your taxidermist, there are a few damaging methods you should avoid.
A quality skull mount starts with proper cleaning, above ground.
Burying
Underground is where many dead things decompose, so burying a meaty skull might seem like a slam dunk for getting the gunk off without getting your hands dirty. But this method comes at a cost.
While bone doesn’t break down as quickly as flesh, it still loses integrity from long-term exposure to nature’s recycling system. Burying a skull can lead to loss of delicate facial bones, loosening of suture lines, and increased fragility. It also increases the porosity of an already-porous material, which leads to one of the biggest downsides of burial: staining.
Depending on the climate and type of soil you’re working with, you might get away with only slight discoloration of the final product. Or, you might be left with a permanently brown, splotchy mess. But the real question with burial is whether you’ll have anything left to work with at all.
Every part of a dead animal is a delicacy for something else out there. You might be able to bury a skull so it’s out of sight and smell for you and your housemates, but it’s only a matter of time before some hungry scavenger finds your hidden treasure. No matter how many rocks you stack on top of it, there is always a risk of your trophy being dug up and gnawed on or dragged off altogether.
Instead of a dirt hole and a prayer, try warm water maceration and good-old-fashioned elbow grease to set yourself up for a pro-quality mount. If working with a horned or antlered skull, remove the horn sheaths as soon as they loosen or thoroughly wrap the antler bases with a non-porous material before you start the cleaning process to prevent discoloration from lengthy exposure to water and heat.
The most common and effective method for wrapping antlers is electrical tape over cling wrap, with the wrap starting just under the lip of the antler burr and extending to any point on the antler that might make contact with the water or pot.
Boiling
Once you’ve removed most of the meaty goodness from a skull, the next step is precision cleaning and degreasing. Water is the universal solvent and a natural fit for this job, but at what temperature?
While the exfoliating power of a rolling boil is certainly effective for removing residual bits of tissue or bug life, it, too, comes at a cost. We’d have big issues at the crematorium if bones were immune to extreme heat. They are not, and boiling your trophy is a surefire way to degrade it and blow out delicate structures.
Boiling action also causes oils to leach inside the bone matrix, making skulls harder or even impossible to fully degrease. Hot water is still your friend in the skull cleaning process, but it’s important to keep a close eye on the pot and never let it boil. Even a simmer can be damaging.
Bleaching
If you were a contestant on Family Feud and Steve Harvey asked you to name a chemical that whitens, you’d probably say bleach, and bleach would almost certainly be the top answer. But for all my ranting about the importance of whiteness in a Euro mount, bleach is the last thing you should use on a skull.
Again, bone is not impervious to anything that destroys other kinds of biological material. While bleach will chew through the grease and grime on your trophy, it will simultaneously chew through the bone itself. And bone, as we know, is porous–so bleach is able to permeate deep inside where it cannot be rinsed off. You might achieve a glowing white specimen, but at the cost of its long-term integrity.
Instead of bleach, look for perhaps the only product that is shared in the inventory of both beauty and taxidermy supply stores: hair developer. For a well-degreased skull, a generous coat or two of 40-volume cream peroxide developer will whiten like bleach with none of the damage.
Developer still whitens all surfaces indiscriminately. If you don’t want the added task of color restoration, be sure to keep horn sheaths off and antlers tightly wrapped throughout the whitening process.
A quality Euro mount is achievable for the willing do-it-yourselfer. Stick to the right process, and you can start adding quality pieces to your trophy room at a fraction of the cost.
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