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Very dumb question about owl pellets


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My kid is super into bones of all kinds so I am going to order some owl pellets for him to go to town on. 

My question is this: do the larger pellets contain more interesting stuff in them? I assume this is the case, that the bigger the pellet, the more bones there are inside. But then I got to thinking that maybe the owl has a larger poop because it contains more...poop... to help move the indigestibles along. If the bigger pellets contain more bones, than the larger size is completely worth it, because the cost per volume is lower for the larger pellets. But I dont want to pay extra for, ehem, turds.

And thus ends the weirdest thought process I have ever committed to writing.

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Owl pellets aren't poop. They are more like puke! Does that help? 😂
The nice thing is that every one is a guaranteed winner - they all have a skeleton. It is the parts of their food that couldn't be processed in their guts, so it gets regurgitated to make room for the next meal. Talk about the potential for disordered eating! I don't know the answer to your question exactly, but it stands to reason that larger pellets will at least have bones from a (slightly) larger prey. When we did owl pellets the internet gave us a nice set of likely skeleton diagrams that the kids taped skeleton pieces on to as part of identifying them.

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Also, you might consider getting a "3 pack" if they have such a thing -- or, one large pellet and one smaller pellet -- as that increases your chances of additional types of bones. Plus, it's owl pellets and bones -- you really can't lose, even if all pellets just have vole bones. 😉 

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43 minutes ago, SusanC said:

Owl pellets aren't poop. They are more like puke! Does that help? 😂
The nice thing is that every one is a guaranteed winner - they all have a skeleton. It is the parts of their food that couldn't be processed in their guts, so it gets regurgitated to make room for the next meal. Talk about the potential for disordered eating! I don't know the answer to your question exactly, but it stands to reason that larger pellets will at least have bones from a (slightly) larger prey. When we did owl pellets the internet gave us a nice set of likely skeleton diagrams that the kids taped skeleton pieces on to as part of identifying them.

Oh, I I had no idea (obviously😁)! That does really answer my question. I never even considered that it wasn't poop.

Thank you! I was planning on buying at least 10, because I have 3 kids and I am sure they will want to do this several times. 

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We got ours from either Carolina Biological or Home Science Tools, and I could swear that I got a package of like 8- 10 of just the pellets because I had a group of kids doing it. We did owl pellet dissection several times when my big kids were little. Some of their neighborhood public schooled friends usually joined us. I usually had enough for each kid to have one and I want to say it was around $15 - $20. I can't find that package anymore but the activity was always a huge hit with kids over 7 or 8 years old. I remember doing it in public school in 3rd grade.

I have a homeschool mom friend whose husband is a ranger in a national park. They always hoped that he would find an owl pellet while he was at work since one of the animals he frequently ran into was owls. But, he never seemed to come across any so she ended up ordering them for their dd to dissect when she was in elementary school. Finally, when their dd was a senior in high school I believe (and still homeschooled), he went out to his truck one morning to go to work and found an owl pellet on the hood, lol. Yes, the dd did dissect the pellet after they heat treated it lol.

Edited by sweet2ndchance
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