Oregon Woman Gets Paid to Clean Animal Skulls with Flesh-Eating Beetles

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

[Music]

Hey, Side Hustle School listeners. It's Chris Guillebeau. I got something I bet you have never heard of today. In fact, I'm going to be shocked if you've heard about it before. At least I was shocked when I heard about it.

So let's just jump right to it. How would you like to set up a colony of beetles in your home, beetles as in insects, and put them to work for you? And these are no ordinary beetles. They are, in fact, flesh-eating beetles. And their job is going to be to clean animal skulls for fun and profit.

Well, I know what you're thinking. Chris, that sounds like an awful idea. I would never in a million years want to do that. Well, that opinion may not change by the end of this episode. I'm kind of there with you, actually.

However, for the focus of the story and our purpose at Side Hustle School, what if I told you that this colony of beetles, which just so happens to work for free since they're insects, this colony of beetles actually earns thousands of dollars a month for an Oregon woman. Like I said, you still may not want to do this yourself, but on this daily show, I'm trying to demonstrate all the different ways that you can make money. And I'm learning about some of them myself along the way. Flesh-eating beetles earning thousands of dollars a month on the side, only on Side Hustle School, folks. That story coming right up.

[Music]

Carla Brower is a bone cleaner. With a little help from thousands of flesh-eating beetles, her best and only employees, Carla takes a raw specimen and turns it into pristine bone, clean, bright, and white. Her work may be seen at a museum as part of a historical or educational display, or just hung over the mantle at someone's house. In case it's not immediately obvious, bone cleaning is not the most glamorous job. Carla spends hours prepping, cleaning, repairing, and restoring, but the end result is, well, better than when she started.

Carla first learned about dermestid beetles for bone cleaning from the TV show "Bones," but her interest in it as a hobby came about while working on a goat ranch, as one does. She says that learning to use every part of the animal is important to her. And cleaning animal skulls was a way to create something fascinating from what would normally go to waste. When she first started bone cleaning, Carla never thought of it as a potential hustle. Her first experience in it happened by coincidence when she got involved in creating props for a horror show.

It was one of those things she thought was gonna be way easier than it actually was. But then a few years ago, she hired her employees, those dermestid beetles. She now had 300 subcontractors working for her day and night, and she continued to develop her process. As she developed that process, word got around everywhere from other people in the movie industry to pet crematoriums to hunters. People began asking if she would clean something for them or if she had anything she could sell.

So about three years ago, her unusual hobby turned into a hustle and dermestidarium was born. Now, the other day when I previewed this episode, I said something about taxidermy. I was incorrect because taxidermy actually requires a special license, but unlike taxidermy to clean bones, anyone who wants to do it can jump right in. All that Carla needed to do to get started was to open a bank account. While the paperwork was easy, the logistics took some work.

Here's one of my favorite quotes from our interview. She says, "When you're dealing with living beetles and dead animals, you have to be thoughtful about how you're gonna arrange your space and contain everything." No kidding. Carla is a self-proclaimed DIY-er and even calls herself a cheapskate. You might say she was on a bare bones budget. She aims to keep her monthly expenses down by doing everything herself, aside from what the beetles do, of course.

She created and maintained her own website, so the only cost there is the hosting service. She uses WAVE, free small business financial software for invoicing and accounting. And her only other ongoing bill is for electricity, which can get high, especially in winter, since her beetles and process requires heat. Now, these beetles are fairly low-maintenance employees, but you have to get them set up right. This includes a warm environment, but not too warm, or they try to fly away, bringing to mind that classic children's story of Goldilocks and the flesh-eating insects.

Carla says, "If you're careful, you should only need to purchase beetles once." Hers were flown in from Alaska, snowboard beetles tired of the cold, and their descendants are still with her today, bearing a name of proud beetle lineage. Their population ebbs and flows depending on how busy they are, and presumably how much they have to eat. When she first bought her beetles, she got a few hundred of them, but now she has thousands. That starter colony costs less than $100, and she was able to purchase it online from a seller that had positive feedback. Side note to my production team, we should find that guy and feature him, coming soon on Side Hustle School.

Carla maintains standard prices for the skulls she cleans most often, and then quotes case by case for anything unusual. Her business provides both a service, skull cleaning, and a product, clean skulls in bulk, to sell retail. It's been a challenge for Carla to pin down prices, but she keeps an eye on the industry. It's true she's not the only one doing this. Now let's talk about money.

The beetle business is seasonal. It gets busier in the fall and winter, just after hunting season. A slow month might only bring in $500, but in a busy month, she can make $3,000. Carla is not planning to quit her day job, but she is scaling back the amount of time she spends there while letting her side hustle play a bigger role in her life. She can potentially see the beetle biz becoming full-time one day.

She has some ideas on how to expand the scope further so that it can grow and prosper. All I have to say is make no bones about it. You can get paid for anything. [Music]

Wow, what to say about this bone-rattling side hustle? I mean, it does have some clear benefits, right?

Passive income. No need to pay those hundreds of subcontractors who work for free, as long as you leave the heat on. This is a service that people need. Your expenses, as mentioned, are basically non-existent, aside from that electricity. And obviously there's some downsides too, particularly the one downside in what this actually involves, that whole bone-cleaning animal schools thing.

But hey, you know, to each their own. And one of my challenges as the host of the show is that I often wanna start the projects that I hear about. Like I'm working on all these stories and I'm like, "Why don't I sell on Amazon?" I mean, my books are on Amazon. But why don't I have like a fulfilled by Amazon account? Why am I not making bumper stickers?

Why am I not selling sneakers like the dude we talked about yesterday? Gotta say though, personally, I'm gonna leave this one to Carla. I mean, I do respect her. She is bad to the bone. And just in case there's anybody out there who's thinking this is the thing for me, well, now you know how to do it or at least how to get started.

And I'm gonna leave you with that. Inspiration is good, but inspiration combined with action is so much better. Go get those beetles. To find the show notes and learn how you too can grow your own colony of flesh-eating insects, just go to sidehustleschool.com/291. Or if you'd rather not, well, we'll have a different episode tomorrow.

I am Chris Guillebeau your host for "Side Hustle School." [Music]