The roe buck with the odd missing teeth

Last weekend I went out walking in Quoiggs wood as a present for someone called Darren. He was from Malaysia and he had emailed me asking if I would like a tree shrew skull as a present, then he sent through a whole load of amazing stuff that I'm going to write about later.  To say thanks I offered to send him a roe deer but when I looked in my spares box there wasn't one there, so I went out specially to Quoiggs Wood where I knew there were a few roe deer skeletons.

There were two roe skeletons, but the one I picked had both lower jaws. It was lying with the spine almost as it died, with its head lying at the edge of a stream. The legs were scattered a little bit further apart having been pulled apart by foxes:

The bones that took two-and-a-half years to clean

Out of all the bones I have had, this one has been the longest to write about ! Above are the bones a week or so ago (and an atlas bone from a seal as well !) but it took two-and-a-half years to get them like this. These bones are so interesting that I have written three posts about what I did and what I found.

When I was in Northern Ireland in April 2010 Granddad said he had found something. He asked if I was interested in some dog bones. I said definitely yes, so we went in the car together and then walked into a deserted field. He showed me where it was. It was underneath a hay bale, and I thought it would just be bones, but it was mummified which is not the prettiest thing to see. That's why the next picture you need to click on it and hold down to see it properly, and don't do it while you're eating your dinner !

My brilliant new clever invention for cleaning bones

For ages I have been thinking of a better way of cleaning bones with biological washing powder. I have been using biological washing powder to clean for almost two years now after it was recommended when I visited Perth Museum. I wrote more about it in my complete guide to cleaning bones, but the way it works is it contains enzymes which eat away and dissolve fat. 

Up until now the way now I have been putting the bones to be cleaned in a plastic container, adding the biological powder, then adding hot (not boiling) water then leaving it for a while, then adding a new lot of hot water and powder. The problem is that when the water cools it doesn't clean as well so it takes lots of changes of water.

So I have been thinking for ages for a way to do it easier, where it's nice and clean, and it heats itself. Then two weeks ago I was at a nearly-new sale with my family and Dad saw this and wondered if it might work....