I found that owning a dermestid beetle colony is well worth the effort.
They do next to perfect work and don't need much attention.
1. First, I posted a request on Craigslist for a free broken chest freezer and quickly found one. For small projects, this size does the trick, but the biggest piece I can comfortably get in there is a large mammal's skull.
2. The most expensive part of the project setup is the temperature control: $45. The heat lamp plugs into this and keeps the temp around 85-90F. I keep an extra thermometer in the freezer to make sure it is staying accurate.
3. Purchase beetles. I found a supplier of beetles a few hours away on ebay. I would say that 500 are enough to start and they run around $20. If you constantly feed them, they will quickly flourish to the thousands.
They do next to perfect work and don't need much attention.
1. First, I posted a request on Craigslist for a free broken chest freezer and quickly found one. For small projects, this size does the trick, but the biggest piece I can comfortably get in there is a large mammal's skull.
2. The most expensive part of the project setup is the temperature control: $45. The heat lamp plugs into this and keeps the temp around 85-90F. I keep an extra thermometer in the freezer to make sure it is staying accurate.
3. Purchase beetles. I found a supplier of beetles a few hours away on ebay. I would say that 500 are enough to start and they run around $20. If you constantly feed them, they will quickly flourish to the thousands.
4. I water them with a spray bottle every week and give them cracked hard boiled eggs if I don't have any carcasses. They seem to really thrive on the eggs. Funny enough they like soy hot dogs too and REALLY enjoy leftover Thanksgiving turkey.
5. It takes about 2 days for a small bird to be COMPLETELY clean with about 2,000 active beetles.
6. When the beetles have finished, I set the bones aside so that the majority of bugs will leave the bones and head back to the main colony. This way, there are very few bugs killed in the succeeding freezing process (necessary so that no beetles hitch a ride into the house during the re-articulation process).
5. It takes about 2 days for a small bird to be COMPLETELY clean with about 2,000 active beetles.
6. When the beetles have finished, I set the bones aside so that the majority of bugs will leave the bones and head back to the main colony. This way, there are very few bugs killed in the succeeding freezing process (necessary so that no beetles hitch a ride into the house during the re-articulation process).
