How to macerate bones start to finish
Dead animal/part of a dead animal
Knife (paring or scalpel works best imo)
Newpaper/paper towels (semi optional)
Toothpick/rod (semi optional)
Alcohol/lysol wipes (semi optional)
Prep with a dead animal or part of a dead animal:
Grab your dead animal (if it’s in a bag, grab the bag, if it’s not, put gloves on first), knife, container, paper, toothpick/rod, bags, and gloves (you’ll want a few).
Find a well ventilated area away from people or where people won’t be bothered by the smell. Put the paper down (if you’re in the woods you don’t have to do this) and put the dead animal on it. Make sure your bags and jars are open before you start. Put gloves on if you haven’t already.
If it has feathers, scales, etc that you want to keep, take them off now. Grab them at the base and give a gentle tug slightly in the opposite direction of how they grow. Don’t go too opposite or you may damage them. Put them in a bag.
Make the first cut. If it is a whole animal, or has an abdomen, cut from hip to upper chest, if it is say a leg just start going into a meaty part close to the bone and carving away. If it has an abdomen, peel the skin back, and gut it. Just go for it. Don’t puncture a hollow organ or the liver. Throw the meat and organs in a new bag or if you’re in the woods you can just chuck it.
Just keep cutting off skin and flesh, and throwing it in the bag as you go. You might want to change your gloves a couple times during this and put them in the bag too. You want to get as much off as possible. Be careful not to cut the bone. Cut through the ligaments and tendons too.
Once a bone is as clean as you can get it, seperate it from the other bones. Inbetween the bones there are little white strings. You want to be very careful. You will have to move the bone around and cut them as you go. Do not move it farther than it will go or you may damage the bone. You will keep having to move the bone around to find and cut all of them.
When working on the skull, gouge it’s eyes out. Once you are done with the outside of the skull (and you’re going to want to seperate the neck from the skull carefully), put the rod or toothpick in it’s skull and scramble it’s brains. If you use something disposable, put it in the bag.
Put the bones in the jar once they are as clean as you can get them and seperated out. Don’t worry about thoroughly cleaning smaller bones too much like squirrel paws or pigeons necks because damaging them is easy. You dont have to seperate every bone either. Just to get them to fit in the jars and to make the animal easier to handle.
Once you are done cleaning every bone to the best of your ability, put the paper in the bag and take your gloves off and put them in the bag. Close the bag and throw it away. Take the container of bones inside and fill it with very warm-hot water. The warmer the better. Put the lid on the jar.
Wipe the jar, where the jar was sitting, and anything you touched (remember the sink faucets and door handles!) with the wipes. Thoroughly scrub your hands, the knife, if you used a non disposable item for braining with dish soap and hot water. Scrub the sink afterwards. Change your clothes or maybe even take a shower.
Prep with a /mostly/ clean bone:
Do the same as above^ but it will take less flesh removal. If it has so little flesh you can’t remove anymore go to the next step.
Leave the container in a warm location (direct sunlight is best) for a few weeks or months.
Take your jar and find a location to dump the water. You can wear gloves but I find it harder to handle. If you have an open wound on your hand please cover it. You can dump it in a sink carefully. Outside is best though. Don’t dump where animals will drink it or kids will play in it. Do not water plants that will be eaten with it. Dump it where people will not be bothered by the smell.
Open the container. It will smell. Bad. Dump the water in your chosen location, being careful not to dump out the bones. You can use a strainer to help you if you’d like. Refill the container with water (any temperature) and redump it in your chosen location. Keep doing that until the water runs clean.
Refill the water with very warm-hot water again. Wipe the jar and everything you touched with the wipes. Scrub your hands and the sink or strainer if you used a sink or strainer with hot water and soap. You will probably want to change your clothes after this or maybe even shower. If you have an open wound on your hand or if the water got anywhere near an open wound (even if you covered it) clean it thoroughly with hydrogen peroxide or rubbing alcohol. Maceration water in an open wound can cause a neurotic infection.
Repeat steps 1-4 until the bones are clean of all flesh
Once the bones are flesh free, they can be degreased if they are greasy. Some bones do not have to be degreased. This is usually only for bones of more fatty animals.
This will follow the same steps as maceration but you will use hot water with a lot of dish soap. You can also use ammonia but you have to very careful with that. I don’t know the exact amount of ammonia you use, but I know you have to dilute it in water and you use a small amount. If you are a beginner, I would advise starting with soap. You will keep going until the water no longer is greasy and the bones are no longer greasy.
You will now have squeaky clean bones!!!
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