Supervised Agricultural Experience (SAE) Visit - Brayden Myers

Big Spring High School Senior Brayden Myers Mounts Himself For Success With An Intuitive Taxidermy Business

Using Flesh Eating Beetles for Taxidermy

Brayden Holding a Clean Skull

Brayden Myers of Big Spring High School shares "my dad and I started doing deer heads when I was really young". He is referring to the passion project which later became his Supervised Agricultural Experience or SAE. 

At first, Brayden and his father would remove animal carcass by boiling a deer head until there was nothing but a clean skull. This process worked well, however they noticed it left the remaining skull weak which made the task of mounting a deer head more challenging.

Intuitively, Brayden began searching for ways to make the cleaning process more efficient without leaving the skull weak for mounting. He says "about two years ago, I discovered I could buy flesh eating beetles online."

Using the flesh eating beetles to clean skulls was very effective because the integrity of the skull remained intact and little processing was needed after being left to the creeping carnivorous creatures. Brayden houses his little helpers in an old chest freezer that he converted into a beetle base.

Cleaning After The Beetles

Looking Towards the Future

Brayden plans to continue taxidermy work into his adult life by expanding the business which started as a father-son project. 

I believe this young man has a great deal of potential and exhibits a promising entrepreneurial spirit. Brayden has no fear in trying new things and working to improve processes, even if he has to fix a few bugs along the way. See what I did there?