Learn about owls and the animals they eat by doing an owl pellet dissection. This complete kit comes with a large owl pellet (1-1/2" or larger), dissection tools, instructions, identification key, and bone sorting chart. This is a great kit for learning about food chains, too! Grades K-12.
The following questions might help you come up with a good science project: What does the number of different bones you found tell you about a barn owl's eating habits? (You might compare multiple pellets.) Can you construct a food chain for the barn owl? Look for more info in our Owl Pellet Lab dissection project.
Our owl pellets have been heat sterilized for a minimum of 10 hours at 280°F to kill any bacteria on them. Even so, we recommend that you follow these guidelines when working with owl pellets:
Supervise children to ensure they never put owl pellets or parts of owl pellets in their mouth!
Work in a place separate from eating and food preparation areas.
Use a disposable plate to contain the owl pellet during dissection.
Use a sanitizer to thoroughly wash hands, work area, and any dissection tools when finished. Household bleach in a 1:10 solution can be used for surfaces.
My 10 and 8 yo really enjoyed this activity. It was a good starting point for dissection. They especially liked comparing the bones to the chart and trying to figure out what was what. I would do this again.
Awesome Dissection Kit!
By: Terra, IL
November 6, 2008
My kids loved this project! My 11 yo daughter complained about how gross and smelly it was, but she did an awesome job of finding a ton of bones. My 7 yo son thought the gross factor made it more cool and was so excited every time he found a bone! We would definitely do this project again!
It was a blast!
By: Heather Adams
October 21, 2008
My kids had a great time! I was afraid my girls weould be squimish and would feel sorry for the owl's dinner but they loved it. I was put more at ease when I read that the pellets had been heat sterilized. That aspect should be stressed for the squeamish mothers and chilren out there. We had 2 rodents in our pellet and the kids had a great time reconstructing them and gluing them to a paper to preserve.
Great Kit
By: Sonja West
September 13, 2008
This was an excellent product. My kids were so excited and that always aids the learning process. Thanks for quality, low cost products.
Grossly Cool!
By: Adele V.
August 7, 2008
My kids enjoyed this cool yet gross kit of dissecting owl pellets. It was great fun to take apart the pellet and try to match the bones to the chart to figure out what poor rodent was for dinner!
Owl pellet kit
By: Nashia
July 23, 2008
The boys enjoyed dissecting their pellets, but they got bored rather quickly. Some of the bones were so small they were easily broken and so reproducing the whole animal was more difficult than any of us had expected. It was a unique experience but not one that we will repeat.
Owl Pellet Kit
By: Kelly Burns
May 7, 2008
My 12 year old son loves the owl pellet kit. He likes that there is a chart that he can review, and has had fun determining the type of animal in the pellet. I purchased extra pellets for him for other "rainy days". I would recommend this product for any child that wants to know more about everything.
Owl Pellets
By: Anonymous
February 17, 2008
We were so impressed with this. We did the project with another family and so we had a total of 6 kids ranging in age from 6-15 and they all had something different in their pellet plus they all had a super time! It generated some interesting discussions and we were very impressed. I highly recommend this and I would do it again in a heartbeat. S. Reynolds MT
j raasch
By: Anonymous
February 16, 2008
This product was probably my son's favorite Christmas gift! As soon as we finished opening gifts, he started dissecting the pellet. He really enjoyed finding all the pieces and using the identification chart to figure out what they were. Now when he makes out a gift list, he always includes owl pellets. These are a winner!
Owl Pellet Dissection
By: Anonymous
January 31, 2008
My daughter found remnants of 4 skulls in her pellet! One was pretty well in tact. We were able to reconstruct the rodent skeleton in the kit with all we found in the pellet! She loved it.
Owl-some Product!!
By: Anonymous
January 17, 2008
What a unique learning experience! My 2 oldest sons and I had a blast trying to re-construct our "mystery" prey. We will be doing this again soon! Thanks Home Science Tools, for this wonderful product!
Owl Pellet Dissection Kit
By: Sharon Baloue
January 11, 2008
This kit was very complete and a bargain for the price. My sons, ages 8 & 10, and I dissected 2 owl pellets (we ordered an extra owl pellet)and found a mouse in one and a shrew in the other. The tools, information sheets and pellets provided everything we needed to successfully complete our dissection (we provided paper plates and disposal gloves). This was a total hit. It is a great way to add real hands-on science to any nature/bird study.
Owl Pellet Dissection Kit
By: Anonymous
December 2, 2007
My three kids and I had a blast pulling apart the owl pellet we received and then using the charts to figure out what kind of bones we were finding and what kind of animal they came from. An excelent hands-on teaching tool!
Lot of fun
By: Anonymous
December 1, 2007
This was a great learning experience for my children. They enjoyed dissecting the pellet. Definately took longer than an hour.
Curiosity Galore!
By: Trish Chambers
January 15, 2007
I provided the owl pellet kits for the students of my local homeschooling group. The young biologists were enthralled with the pellets. After a short hesitation they jumped in, finding 1-3 different animals in each pellet. One hour is definately not enough time to complete this kit throughly. After class, my boys and I finished the project by creating as complete a skeleton as possible of one of the animals from each of our pellets. The kit provides a bone skeleton sheet that is essential to the identification of bones.
owl pellet
By: Anonymous
January 5, 2007
This was a very nice kit. We are a homeschooling family & my kids spent several fun and enjoyable days working through this lesson.
Great for a Co-op Class
By: Robin E. Williams
September 5, 2006
I purchased 23 of these kits and used them with a homeschool Science co-op class with ages 6 to 16. It was a big hit with all ages and the only week (out of 4) that the project was able to keep the attention of both the youngest and the oldest students at the same time. It was especially nice to see all the differing animal remains from so many pellets. The price made it easy to decide to get one per child, rather than one per every 2 or 3 children. I was glad I did as well, as many of the kids enjoyed it so much they took the remains home to show their parents. I hoped none had squeamish mothers ;o).
Excellent introduction to dissecting!
By: Anonymous
September 5, 2006
My children and I enjoyed this kit immensely. It was a time consuming project but was very fun. Dissecting the pellets were a bit like a treasure hunt especially when they were able to assemble an entire vole skull.
Cart
|
My Account
|
Wish List
Email a Friend 
Add to Wishlist 
