Can I thoroughly clean bones at home safely

[momofboys24]

My toddler is obsessed with skeletons so when we past by a dead cat on the side of the road that seemed mostly decomposed and asked if he could have it I couldn't resist. It only had fur left but no real "meat" to it. I got gloves and pick up the head and brought it home. I have already peeled the fur from it. Now how do I sanitize it well enough for him to play with? I was thinking a bucket of strong bleach water fiollowed by air drying in the sun?! Any advice welcome!

[Arete]

I had a master's project in which we needed to skeletilize the lower jaw from a bunch of deer heads (to use tooth wear as an indicator of age). The method we used was to place the head in a slow cooker, fill it up with water and leave it cooking all day. It worked excellently for our purposes, though it probably wouldn't clean the insides of a brain case if that's what you wanted. It also makes a hell of a smell, so might be best done out in the shed or garage.

[momofboys24]

Thanks arête I will try and boil it today! Last night I soaked it in bleach. I pulled it out and dryed it off but it still smelled of rotting flesh. So apparently I haven't cleaned it well enough.

[CharonY]

Bleach is actually not that great, as it will render the bones brittle. IIRC a standard way was to macerate in warm water (which will take quite a while and is not terribly pleasant). Boiling is probably faster though, but has to be done somewhat carefully to preserve the skeleton. To bleach it up hydrogen peroxide can be used.

[momofboys24]

Charon thanks the advice bleach is probably why all the teeth fell out

[Mousetrap]

I've cleaned quite a few specimens, the boiling method does work, and does smell absolutely awful.

Depending on how hands on you want to be, I'd toss your subject in some formalin and go at it with a scalpel first. This will reduce the amount of stuff you'll need to boil off (and reduce the smell when boiling). The formalin will halt any further decomposition and give some time to work on it.

There is always the path of least resistance:

http://www.boneroom.com/bone/bone.html

If you're still wanting to go the DIY route, I'd clean the bones by scraping as much as possible, soak them in H2O2 for about a half hour if using OTC drugstore H2O2, then boil.

Scrape any leftover bits off and supervise time with it until your toddler gets a bit older. No touching bones and then the face/mouth without hand washing etc. it will be reasonably clean, but not sterile.

 

 

Edited December 1, 2012 by Mousetrap

[anotherfilthyape]

Is it health for his mental development to play with skeletons? I like skeletons too... But... I mean... He is a child...

[Arete]

Is it health for his mental development to play with skeletons? I like skeletons too... But... I mean... He is a child...

 

Why, is anatomy one of the seven deadly sins now?

 

As a kid I had a "nature" collection... with interesting rocks, seed pods, shells, skulls, turtle shells, shark eggs, etc ,etc, etc. It graduated into a butterfly collection for a while, a fossil collection, then when I got a microscope a "slides of interesting things" collection, and for a while was an "interesting bones" collection.

 

Many of our greatest scientific minds started out simply collecting interesting specimens, and many of them never stopped doing that. There's entire wings of museum collections devoted to skeletal specimens, because they hold considerable scientific value.

 

If anything, having an animal skull, amongst other things is extremely healthy, productive and satisfying way of exploring a natural curiously with the natural world around us. If it leads him into palaeontology, medicine, veterinary medicine, or like myself - organismal biology, that would be fantastic. What exactly do you associate with bones that would make them unsuitable for a child, and why would you project those prejudices onto a curious child?

Edited December 1, 2012 by Arete

[Mousetrap]

I am an anatomist, I work on human cadavers and we have a few folks bring their young children into the lab.

The context and the behavior of the adults as well as the monitored reaction of the kids are what is most important. When adults are tense or seem like something is wrong, kids pick up on it.

When the experience is framed as part of learning and understanding the natural world, and the child wants to see the anatomy, you have no problems. No one is dragging their kid into the lab kicking and screaming. Generally, they want to see more than the simple specimens we select for younger people to have contact with.

Life and death are natural, I think anatomy is a beautiful investigation of life in a way impossible on a living creature. It is a very western concept that death must feared and treated as some dirty little secret that we must shield a child from at all costs.

The red flags come up when a child captures, tortures and kills animals then keeps trophies. There is a massive difference.

I know people who have gotten summer jobs in cadaver labs at the age of 14. It is all in the comfort of the parent and the maturity of the child.

 

 

[vampares]

Is it health for his mental development to play with skeletons? I like skeletons too... But... I mean... He is a child...

Is it unhealthy?

 

Removal of fats and animal resins usually requires sulfuric acid. That would dissolve the skeleton as well, obviously. Whatever you do, you might consider calcium carbonate solution or otherwise alkali solution to work in. The lye solution will dissolve the flesh. The solutions for this are something that would be carefully controlled. Enzymes won't work in a basic environment. Papain will work somewhere around pH 4.0. This will not remove tendons which is the connective tissue of concern. I've heard cats are particularly sinuous. You might just shave the bone off with a proper knife or razor.

 

Preventing the decomposition then requires preservation such as a bromide or frequent applications of a sulfurous compound AKA sulfites. And work in a cold environment.

Edited December 6, 2012 by vampares