Alligator Euro

[Nutterbuster]

Y'all buckle up, this is gonna get messy.

So about 5-6 years ago, my dad got drawn and I got to help out on a gator hunt. If you've never harpooned an 8ft, perfectly designed apex killing machine, I highly recommend it. For whatever reason, we kept the head in the freezer and never got it done. I've done bobcats, coyotes, deer, and a hog, so I figure maybe I can take a crack at this thing.

I've always simmered my skulls and carved away at the tissue with a havalon blade and a water hose. Super low tech. If I can do a euro, anyone can. Not hard, and really not that messy. Kinda like making chicken stock, but with brains. Throw an onion in there and it smells like dinner. Shout out to @DanO for providing me with the havalon I'll be abusing for this project. After the bulk of the meat is gone, I degrease and dry. I don't generally bleach them because I like the natural bone look, but I do have the stuff and I might go that route this time around. I usually degrease with dawn, but this time around I have some oxyclean I'd like to try.



Oh, to be thin and rocking the Robin Hood facial hair again...

 

[Nutterbuster]

First step is the defrost. Fella has been froze solid for longer than I've been married. Got him soaking in a 10 gallon tub until I knock off at 5 tonight. Serves the usual purpose of thawing and checking to see if this tub will hold water. Kinda nervous because it's rather thin. But a pot big enough to hold a 2ft head is rather pricey.

 

[shwacker]

Have fun, lol. Way more of a pain than deer. I can do 4 deer in the time it takes me to do one big gator. Careful with the teeth


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[Nutterbuster]

Have fun, lol. Way more of a pain than deer. I can do 4 deer in the time it takes me to do one big gator. Careful with the teeth


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Yeah, teefies are a pain, and this chunky boy has plenty. If I screw it up, I'll just pull the teeth and make a necklace. Lol

 

[shwacker]

I always take the teeth out boil a little bit by themselves and replace/glue in later. I have left them in and there is apparently enough meat/tissue under and in them that I got a lot of little maggots and funky smells from it. Def a pain but they look good when done


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[Nutterbuster]

First round did ok. After simmering an hour I was able to spray off 99% of the hide, and pull/cut most of the meat around the jaw. I was quite impressed by the muscle mass there.

The jaw did split. Might have simmered a bit too hot. The teeth are still solid, which is good. I'm bracing myself to have to remove teeth, or have that choice made for me after this boil. I got a good chunk of stuff out of the nasal cavities and lower jaw, but there is more to go. Will try another hour simmer with detergent this time (foam in first pic is just funk from head and bucket) and then hopefully all that will be needed is some spraying and a degreasing soak.

 

[Nutterbuster]

Hit a snag.

I watch a lot of whitebone creations videos, and I know I have seen him do alligators without having to glue teeth. But I'm finding that the teeth have a lot of cartilage like @shwacker stated. The little teeth do not have individual holes they neatly fit into. Cartiledge hold a lot of them together and in a channel.

I really don't wanna go the "take lots of pictures, use lots of glue" route. I've found bits of cartilage in the nose of deer before years after the mount was done, and there was no smell or rot. Tempted to let it dry and see what it looks like. Ideally, the cartilage would firm back up and hold everything in place. And I could make the call to whiten or not.

@shwacker, any thoughts?

 

[shwacker]

Hit a snag.

I watch a lot of whitebone creations videos, and I know I have seen him do alligators without having to glue teeth. But I'm finding that the teeth have a lot of cartilage like @shwacker stated. The little teeth do not have individual holes they neatly fit into. Cartiledge hold a lot of them together and in a channel.

I really don't wanna go the "take lots of pictures, use lots of glue" route. I've found bits of cartilage in the nose of deer before years after the mount was done, and there was no smell or rot. Tempted to let it dry and see what it looks like. Ideally, the cartilage would firm back up and hold everything in place. And I could make the call to whiten or not.

@shwacker, any thoughts?

View attachment 28975

Man, I can’t really say if it’s the cartilage or marrow or something inside the teeth that gave me problems. That was my biggest head and I used my buddies advice or pressure washing close but leaving teeth and cartilage and had those issues. The next one I did that was big I just pressure washed and blew the teeth out in as controlled manner as possible, collect them as you blow them out, you’ll only lose a couple ideally. Then I glue them back in. There may be some secrets that I don’t know about, formaldehyde or something maybe? I’ll contact a buddy of mine and see what he has to say. I have one about like yours in the freezer right now that I’m gonna do for my buddy soon. I always procrastinate on the gator heads for this reason, lol


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[shwacker]

From my buddy...

An 8 fter should boil fine and get all that stuff. Some teeth will fall out. Soak in strong peroxide for a day or 2.

I asked about formaldehyde and he didn’t mention it in response. He likes to soak in peroxide, and that will prob help with the teeth marrow or whatever. I like to put mine in the sun and spray peroxide on them every 15 min for a few hours. This is V40 peroxide from the salon supply store.

If the bottom jaw has already split I’d be carful about boiling too much more, you can get to a point that the whole damn thing will fall apart

Once all meat is off I do about 15 extra minutes with sodium bicarbonate. The oxyclean i think is similar or the same.


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[Nutterbuster]

From my buddy...

An 8 fter should boil fine and get all that stuff. Some teeth will fall out. Soak in strong peroxide for a day or 2.

I asked about formaldehyde and he didn’t mention it in response. He likes to soak in peroxide, and that will prob help with the teeth marrow or whatever. I like to put mine in the sun and spray peroxide on them every 15 min for a few hours. This is V40 peroxide from the salon supply store.

If the bottom jaw has already split I’d be carful about boiling too much more, you can get to a point that the whole damn thing will fall apart

Once all meat is off I do about 15 extra minutes with sodium bicarbonate. The oxyclean i think is similar or the same.


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Thank you!

I think I'm going to try heating some water to a boil with some oxiclean and salon strength peroxide. Shut it off, drop the skull in, and walk away. Take it out when the spirit moves me and dry it and just set it somewhere out of the way inside and see what it looks like after a week. If need be, I'll pull all the teeth and glue.

This has definitely been the biggest pain out of everything I've done. Makes a deer head seem like nothing. Good confidence builder I reckon. Hopefully folks will read this and give it a shot.

Now I got an otter I gotta do something with...

 

[Nutterbuster]

I think he whitened up ok. Will hit with mop n glo later maybe.



Here's a quick video clip of the "trophy table" I put together. All of the heads were done by myself, and all of them were taken on public land. Lot of hard work and awesome memories on that dresser.

Hopefully this inspires folks to commit to doing their own skulls next year. I've really grown to love euros.

 

[Jay_Disarray]

euros are neat, ive got my doe skull from last year buried in my back yard, im letting the bugs do all the hard work for me. its a skull im not terribly worried about, but just messing with the natural way of cleaning it out.

 

[BTaylor]

That gator is cool but that hog...dude!!!

 

[Nutterbuster]

That gator is cool but that hog...dude!!!

She was a big girl. Everybody assumes boar. Nope. Big, gnarly she-pig.

 

[BTaylor]

She was about the top of the food chain in her woods. A lot of bad intentions on the front end of that gal.

 

[Nutterbuster]

She was about the top of the food chain in her woods. A lot of bad intentions on the front end of that gal.

I have wanted a good pair of cutters on a pig for years. I had no idea how big she was when I pulled the trigger and almost didn't shoot because i had another on the ground already, but when I walked up and peeled those lips back, I was glad I did. No idea the weight, but it was all i could do to roll her around to clean her. The head packed out on my back weighed more than some deer I've deboned.