r/vultureculture

Just finished this for my education permit

Turkey feathers are probably one of the most common large bird feathers I find, and I can keep them all, as they do not fall under the Migratory Bird Act. Wild turkeys are classified as non-migratory upland game birds, meaning that it is legal to collect and keep all their feathers and bones you find.

There are a wide variety of turkey feathers, and all of them are quite large. I have had my friends and family mistake turkey feathers for hawk and owl feathers, so I wanted to share this with you all!

This spike buck was found pretty well picked over by scavengers.
I’d like to keep the skull but don’t know if it was hit by an auto and broken, though one orbit looks gnawed out. At minimum I’d like to cut out the spike antler skull cap.

The hooves are another story. Any advice here would be hugely appreciated. Can I pull the tendons out of the foot “soles” and preserve it with fomaldehyde injection and packing in borax, or is it likely too far gone and prone to fur slippage?

we found this poor thing inside our store. Almost fully certain it's a house sparrow as they nest inside our store. I feel so bad for this little guy but this is also pretty neat. taking him home.

Is it partially eaten by ants because I found it newly dead in my driveway? Yes. Is it lopsided? Yes. Is the background slightly askew? Yes. But through having only one good hand and dystonia I did it. I’ve been so sick CRPS, ME, gastroparesis, etc I didn’t think I’d be able to do it ever. I did and I’m proud dispite it looking kinda shit.

Found it in a barn=)

I found it at the thrift store, it’s about 12 inches long

whats the explanation for this

I found him a few months ago. I thought he was a wildcat, but then I saw in a photo I took that he had white paws, and I don't know if that's typical for wildcats. Is he a domestic cat or a wild cat?

The skull on the right belongs to the carcass.

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.

Been steadily working my way through assembling this lil guy, thought others might be interested ✌️

I only have pretty basic anatomical knowledge, and have struggled finding good reference images (especially for all the teensie paw bones!), so I've been using a lot of trial and error to puzzle things together. Thankfully I like puzzles and have strong spatial reasoning skills :P

Happy to take pictures of any specific parts if it'll help someone else with their puzzle. I've been taking a lot of reference photos that I'll eventually put up somewhere, but for now haven't been bothering to crop and reduce for sizes for extra pictures 🤷

Between r/bonecollecting and r/vultureculture, many people offered helpful suggestions and a few people asked for updates on this buck skull covered in fake blood:

**Good/Bad News:** After a soak in the rain, the dye was *better.* (Grass pictures.) I then gave it a thick layer of “creme peroxide” from Sally Beauty which bubbled nicely but ultimately didn’t do much.

**Good News:** I did sloooowly pour some traditional peroxide as a test and that made two fantastic clean spots. That and the pink tinge on the tub makes me believe a full soak would actually get this shit out.

**Bad News:** I’ve already spent about $50 on supplies to clean this skull, but I don’t have near enough trad peroxide to actually soak this skull. I’m part time at the moment, so I can’t really justify (financially) spending more.

**Call for Suggestions:** What do? Originally I was thinking if the stain was too set to completely erase, I would try to paint or dye this skull a dark color and do a kintsugi style art project. Technically I think I could get it clean but like…. I don’t want to spend another $50 on something I wasn’t planning on selling. Halp. Moral vs Financial Dilemma.

- Hannie

My niece recently passed away, and she was the only other person in my life who enjoyed bone, bug and oddities collecting 😔 a couple years ago she and I went for a walk and I jokingly said " if we find any bones I get to keep the skull " well don't we come across a beautiful opossum skull with a mandible and some vertebrae. Well me being the nice aunt that I am, I took the smaller pieces and she kept the skull. Even through 2 moves she kept it and when I found it I couldn't help but cry. I have also found other bones and oddities she has collected and it makes my heart hurt yet so happy knowing she also found enjoyment in the "abnormal".

The skull is now part of my little collection as I truly don't think she would mind. This is just not how I expected it to be in my possession 😔 the little pink and green box in the background also has some of her baby teeth. I think she would appreciate the display.

Most of the bones I’ve found have been fairly aged, some full of moss, with little need for degreasing. This little dude I found has been in the degreasing process for a month now, little progress. The scapulas have barely changed at all and much of the vertebrae is still quite dark.

These are the bones, currently drying just to gauge how greasy they are now. I take them out every 2-3 days, let them dry, change the soapy water, and repeat. Are there any hacks for this or do I just gotta be real patient?

Is he a raccoon or a river otter?

I wanted to test a few preservation methods out and used a couple opossum heads for it.

Little (okay actually it's huge??) guy was preserved with Everclear (190 proof/95% ABV) and brains removed. After injection and soaking, it was dried in silica. The ears, eyes, and lips were pinned and initially were perfect, but humidity had other plans for my house. Urghhh.

It turned out okay - not perfect due to environmental factors like a whopper 80-90% indoor humidity despite my AC + dehumidifying. Normally, these come out better, but all things considered, I'll count it as a win. I lost all of my dried crafting flowers to that bizarre week-long heat and humidity spike so I'm sour about that. We don't get temps like that around here usually 🫩

Next time, I'll mount them traditionally. I didn't have time or freezer space initially, but I have a new freezer so... ehehehe.

A background remover was used for this pic because my light box was looking ugly as sin that day lol

Hi guys, I was out walking my dog and we found a dead budgie outside my house. I live in the American south so this is not at all a native bird, my best guess is that it was someones pet that got out, and died due to the heat or got caught by one of the cats roaming outside. I’m going to put a post out to see if this is anyones pet but right now it is triple bagged and in my freezer.

Would this bird be protected by the mbta? If not, and if no one claims it, how would I go about preserving this poor guy? Id love to keep the feathers intact if I can. Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated rn thanks!!!