What an excellent experiment — dissecting an owl pellet. You know that owls eat their prey whole but cannot digest all the hair and bones. So those things are later coughed up in what is called an owl pellet. Fascinating stuff in there! We found the remains of 3 mice inside one owl pellet.
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DD found the dissection very interesting, but she refused to use her fingers to touch the pellet. Thus she is using two pairs of tweezers. 🙂 She got the job done. And I was just glad that she found it interesting and didn’t refuse altogether. She can be a bit “girly” at times, and although I encourage femininity, I don’t want her to be afraid of “icky” things.
This is a mouse’s jawbone. The kit I bought came with three pellets and a guide that shows all the possible bones you may find inside. We were able to classify all the bones based on the very detailed drawings and descriptions (and some common sense). Very neat-o!
I also bought a Zoobooks on owls to supplement the experiment. We didn’t read much of it; we were too busy oohing and ahhing at each new discovery in the pellet.
Look at that face! We are so blessed to be able to homeschool! I love to see that intense concentration and joy of discovery!
All our bones are stored safely in a small coffee tin on the shelf with all the other science goodies.
I highly reccommend this fun and not-messy experiment. Well, there is a lot of hair you have to get rid of. But it’s clumped together and dry. 🙂
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