Dissecting Owl Pellets

For a part of our Nocturnal Animal Theme, we invited some friends over to learn about owls. We read, "Owls" by Gail Gibbons and then did a color, cut and paste art project. You can download this for free in my Nocturnal Animal PDF. 

We learned that owls eat their prey whole, bones and everything. However, the owl's bodies aren't able to digest the bones and fur. Instead, the owl "coughs" up the bones and fur in the form of a pellet.  One pellet can contain multiple bones from multiple animals. For a group of younger children, I thought it would be more appropriate to dissect synthetic owl pellets. I chose these, because I wasn't sure how sanitary actual pellets are (think group setting with preschool aged children) and I liked that the synthetic pellets contain the bones of ONE animal and a sorting sheet, so little ones can match up bones and guess which animal the owl ate. We used magnifying glasses to get a better look at the bones.

After our friends left, my six really wanted to glue his bones together. This was fascinating and a great science activity. We talked about hinges, ball and sockets, and what certain bones protect. My six really loved doing this together. You can purchase the synthetic owl pellets, sorting sheets and bone digraph at Pellets Inc.

Of course, I could't help myself from buying an actual owl pellet from the same company, Pellets Inc.. It looks like this when you get it:

You have to be a little careful dissecting owl pellets, because the bones inside could break. We carefully used our hands and toothpicks to open it up and discover what was inside. This was fascinating. We found multiple jaw bones (you can see the teeth!), and so many bones. It was fun trying to guess which animals they were. The more you dig, the more you would find! I would highly recommend this activity.