Just finished cleaning up this deer, here's the skull!
I picked it up 2 years ago from a ditch in April, just after the snows passed. Horrified a conservation officer when I asked him for a salvage tag - he hid in his truck while I collected it LMFAO. It was in quite the state of decay, and very packed with road salt. This was the very first animal I ever processed, and I didn't know just how much that blasted road salt would get in the way of everything.
The maceration went wonderfully save for when I had a health flareup and accidentally left it too long. Got a hefty buildup of adipocere that I had to manually remove with a dental brush(still finding some here and there.) but for the most part that is done.
The degreasing... that was a PITA. First round, I had a layer of salt crystals on the bottom of the bucket and on some of the bones! Could not believe my eyes, never heard of that, asked in another subreddit what to do and the mods took the post down. So I scrubbed off the salt crust with a green scrubby pad from work and kept doing it. Took til january for the salt to stop seeping from the bones... but the fat refused to budge. Had the basic fish tank heater set to 100, high as it could go. Tried Biz, tried dawn, tried fairy soap, got fed up and dumped a whole bottle of murphy's wood cleaner in the bucket, didn't care anymore if it ruined it or not. Lo and behold it actually started pulling fat from the bones, saw the water turning murky and had a layer of grease on top! Took 3 months of Murphy's and one round of 50% peroxide 50% water overnight. What looks like grease spots are where the salt refused to come out of the browbone, so idc about that anymore lol. I'm surprised how intact it is. Sure, some parts on the back got brittle from the salt, but everything else is nice! Even the little nose bones!!
0/10, would not do again, but it was still worth it. I'm not grabbing ditch deer ever again.