Deer Bones! A pictorial documentary

I’m cleaning these wonderful deer bones I found and I thought I’d do a little show-and-tell!

I saw this big white rib cage glistening in the morning sun as I drove by it on my way to work, so like any sane person I pulled over on the interstate and picked them up! There ended up being WAY more than just the ribs, I filled this whole box with them (yeah that’s an Options by Batesville box that an urn came in at work, I had it in m car). Apparently I found some hunters dump spot, because there ended up being about 5-6 dead deer in a small area, so I grabbed whatever I could without being hit by trucks.

I got two Rubbermaid tubs out of my scary attic and sorted the bones in each based on how much tissue they had left to be removed. One tub ended up being individual bones like legs and some vertebra, while the other was big sections that were still connected. I gave em a big ol’ squirt of Dawn soap and filled them with delicious hose water!

All filled! I had to go back into the scary attic to find lids, which incredibly I was able to find two that fit. Now to leave these babies to soak!

After a little over 24 hours soaking in soapy water, I dumped the tubs, rinsed the bones (which now smelled like rehydrated deer jerky) and filled them back up with plain water so the remaining connective tissues could soak off. I had a horrible incident with my dog, he pulled the lid off one of the tubs and jumped in the water after about 3 days of soaking. It was horrifying. He got a mega bath and there is now a tire keeping him out… cause I’m a wimp and that’s the heaviest thing I could lift.

These tubs were left over from when we moved last year, so they were all labeled. This one appropriately so.

It’s now been 8 days since I started soaking the bones, and most of them are nowhere near done. My guess is that they will need at least a month to completely get rid of all that tough tissue. Today, I pulled out all of the individual bones that were goo-free, rinsed them in the yard, and they are now soaking in water with two capfuls of laundry detergent. They smell BAAAAD, so I’m guessing they’ll need a few baths before they don’t smell at all.

Only a few legs, ribs, vertebra, and random odds and ends made it into this first batch! I’ll update in a few days and show you guys how the other tub is coming along!