I will explain how to make your own real chicken bone set. I do not condone this type of senseless violence to chickens, just to get some bones. 🙂 If you eat whole chickens all the time, it makes sense to make your own throwing set. Although if you a buying a chicken specifically for bones, it’s possible that you get a chicken that has a broken wishbone, so then you need another chicken. Real bones are actually light and a little brittle, so it is recommended to coat these bones in some type of clear acrylic type paint but not a yellowing varnish. You can also mark on your bones with paint or a Sharpie, then put on a clear coat to protect it.
I take a chicken, I prefer a large organic or free range chicken for better bone development. I put it in the crock pot on high for 4 hours. Let it cool, then separate all the meat from the bones. I clean the bones to get most all of the meat off using the scrubby part of the sponge, and scrape off the cartilage on the bones with my fingernail. The backbones are hard to get clean, just do the best you can do and the remaining meat will come off after soaking. Then, I put the bones into a jar with soapy water, and shake the water twice daily. If the water gets cloudy, just put some new water in. In about 5 days, the soapy water helps get out the oils in the bones. After they have soaked for days, take them out and clean them off again. Now you need to get all the remaining stuff off these bones and get the backbones really cleaned off. I use one of those little dental type picks that has a tiny brush to clean out the spinal column in the vertebrae. Finally, take these bones and put them back in the jar with most of it filled with a bottle of 3% hydrogen peroxide. Let these bones soak for two days in this solution. Bam, take out the bones and let them dry, preferably in the sun. It sounds like a lot of work, but it takes a printer an entire day to print a set of bones, so relatively, it’s not so bad. I of course like the feel of the printed bones but to each his own…