RE: stinking antlers!
 

my dad cleans the skin and meat off of them and then puts the skull portion in a plastic bag of salt and leaves htem for a while, like until he finds a place for them. right now we jsut have a pile of them in the garage

RE: stinking antlers!
 

The only good use I have found for fire ants. As said, tie them to a tree or brick or something for a dog or coon or whatever won't drag them off.

RE: stinking antlers!
 

Any dog or coon bold enough to try to steal from fire ants will richly deserve what it gets . [:o]

RE: stinking antlers!
 

I've always just skinned all the tissue off with a sharp pocket knife. No big deal, might take 30-45 minutes of careful cutting.

RE: stinking antlers!
 

i always skinned the bones and tissue from mine and used a little bit of bleach

RE: stinking antlers!
 

When I decide to keep the fur on the scalp, I carefully cut between the skull and the skin to open up a gap. I then fill with coarse salt for a week, empty the salt and then add fresh salt repeating 2-3 more times. Never had a problem after that!

RE: stinking antlers!
 

If I understand your question correctly, you are just wanting the set of antlers. Just clean them the best you can and then stick them in a ant bed for a couple of weeks them bad boys will take care of anything that you could not get off of the horns. Or if you know some one with a pond you can tie them off and throw them in for a couple of weeks.

RE: stinking antlers!
 

Sounds like you already left the hide on too long and have a rotten piece, plus lingering smell. Well, all the good advice you got was truly geared toward "next time" and keeping it from happening again. This time, you need to remove the rotten material, as well as eliminate the smell.

Dont boil in bleach, its not safe. Also, bleach will break down bone if not done correctly, as well as bleach the antler too. If you wanna whiten skulls using bleach, carefully paint it onto the skull and avoid the antler bases and allow to dry out in the sun. Dont boil stinking skulls indoors, unless youre single, or want tobe.

Smelly skulls can be soaked in water with borax for a couple hours and then allowed to dry. You can also scour the skull with borax to clean it up and remove the odor.

RE: stinking antlers!
 

i've always just salted them after taking them off, and I've yet to have any issues.

RE: stinking antlers!
 

another way you can do it is.. take a saw cut the antlers off and let it sit up in a tree.. it kind of works like the ants. bugs will eat away that tissue left and it will get rid of the odor..