Dissecting Owl Pellets

 A, C and D ready to go

 B was ready as well

Yesterday we dissected owl pellets!  I know it sounds gross but it was actually quite fascinating.  Owl pellets are not owl poop but the hairballs of undigested owl food.  They contain hair, fur, bones, teeth, etc.  After dissecting the pellet you can determine what your owl ate.  The older four kids each dissected an owl pellet and E and I worked on one together.

E digging through our pellet

 B digging through her pellet.

C with his pellet.

D finding the bones.

If you can't tell by the pictures, we really had a great time seeing what our pellets contained.  We had charts to identify the bones and what animals they came from.

Here are some of the bones that E and I found.

 Here you can see a clear rodent jaw with the teeth next to it.

Here you can see a clear rodent hip bone.

 A and B looking at some of the bones and identifying them.

 B had all rodents bones.

D and E and I had all rodent bones as well.  A and C had rodent and shrew bones.  I was really impressed that all of our pellets had so many bones.  One of our pellets had 5 different skulls.  I ordered my owl pellets off Amazon from Mountain Home Biological and I would highly recommend them.  If you are looking for a fun and exciting science activity, dissecting owl pellets will not disappoint.