# using dermested beetles



## mlschafer5 (Nov 21, 2007)

I got my first deer this year and I want to do a european mount using dermested beetles. I was thinking of just buying a rubbermaid container and putting that in a insulated plywood box but I have to keep in the pole barn thru the winter. Would a reptile heat pad be enough heat? Or would I need to use a heat lamp?


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## Taxidermist (Jan 3, 2002)

For 1 deer you are going thru a ton of trouble with beetles. First you have to feed them somthing till you get enough beetles to do your 1 skull. You also have to keep the moisture just right and it just down right stinks!!!! You also have to remove as much meat as possible so if your that far all ready you can simmer your skull in sal soda and be done in a half hour. Now if you wanted to do alot of skulls and have a tough stomach then bugs is the way to go because they work while you sleep.


Hope this helps,

Rob


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## mlschafer5 (Nov 21, 2007)

Thank you for the reply. I was just going to do one skull and if that worked out good then maybe I could find a taxidermist who would pay me to have my beetles clean skulls.


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## redwingsdude (Jan 6, 2002)

It sounds like a good idea, but it's really not. If you go out and buy 200 bugs, it's going to take them several weeks to do your deer skull. You need a thousand or so before you get a decent turn-around time on larger skulls. Once you do have that many, you need to keep them healthy and give them food all the time. No taxidermist is going to outsource that work to someone who just started. If you want to clean skulls yourself and start taking in other outside business you need to know what you are doing first. Unless you don't mind the smell, the waiting, the sometimes disgusting labor involved, not to mention you are going to need to experiment to see what works for degreasing and whitening, then leave it to the pro's.


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