There are a few way to clean the bones. We boil them....more like simmer them....till all the gunk and stuff comes off. The boiling also cleans and disinfects the skull in all the nooks and crannies. And then we let them sit in some hydrogen peroxide to make sure all of the organic material is gone. If you do not thoroughly clean the skull you can grow some nasty and dangerous things in it, molds and bacterial colonies. It will also make the skull more attractive to other predator animals. We had a few dogs find a couple of uncleaned skulls and eat them.....which is pretty disturbing! If you are afraid of boiling them you can purchase taxidermy kits that come with a chemical cleaner type of deal. You can find them at any taxidermy or sportsman hunting store. The process usually lightens the color of the skull, if you want darker color you can stain it in a tea or coffee solution for short periods of time till yo get the color you like. Be prepared to glue back a few teeth as they will come loose.



Hope this helps!