Dissecting Owl Pellets DL 444811

GRAB N’ GO ACTIVITY:
Dissecting Owl Pellets
OVERVIEW:
This is a hands-on activity that will give your students Ages: 6+
wonderful insights and tactile experience with owls
and what they eat. Your students will handle actual Time: 40 - 60 minutes
owl pellets, dissecting them to determine what foods
owls have eaten. PRIOR KNOWLEDGE:
The more your students know about owls before
As a precaution, owl pellets are sterilized before doing this activity, the more they will enjoy and
shipping to schools, so they are generally safe to benefit from it. We recommend building up your
handle without gloves. students’ knowledge and appreciation of owls
through any of the following activities:
However, if any of your students are allergic to animal •Divide your class into groups and give each
hair, they may have a reaction to owl pellets, and may group a one-day assignment, to find an image
be required to use a dust mask. You can also provide a and basic information about a species of
plant sprayer to mist the pellets occasionally, which is owl found in Canada. Have them locate this
effective at keeping dust confined to the tabletop. information on the Internet, and make a one-
page report that includes:
The owl pellets your students will dissect will likely • A photo of the owl.
have the bones of several mice in them, and possibly • Where the owl lives.
the remains of other organisms. Most commercially • What the owl eats.
supplied owl pellets contain mouse bones, and we • Details about the size, markings, and
will assume that in this activity. The best indication of physical features of the owl.
how many mice might have been incorporated into
the pellet will be the number of skulls that can be Here is a list of owls found in Canada:
found in a single pellet. -Boreal owl
-Screech Owl -Snowy Owl
OBJECTIVES: -Barred Owl
• Gain insights into the diet and biology of owls -Hawk Owl
through an analysis of the contents of an owl pellet. -Great Grey Owl
• Develop a better understanding of mammalian -Great Horned Owl
skeletal anatomy based on remains recovered from -Barn Owl
owl pellets. -Spotted Owl
-Northern Pygmy Owl
-Short-eared Owl -Burrowing Owl
-Long-eared Owl
-Flammulated Owl
-Northern Saw-whet Owl
Have your students compile these reports into a

booklet they can copy for each member of your class.
Get to Know Program • 201-2040 Springfield Road. • Kelowna, British Columbia • T: 250-980-3969 • E: info@gettoknow.ca • gettoknow.ca
WHAT ARE OWL PELLETS? Biologists who study owls depend on this kind of
Owl pellets are neat little packages of fur, bones, and information, and frequently analyze owl pellets as
other indigestible stuff that are regurgitated (spit up) part of their work in protecting wild owls.
sometime after an owl has finished digesting several
meals. You can find owl pellets on the ground under The owl pellets you’ll be working with are totally
trees where owls like to roost or nest. sanitary. They have been sterilized to kill any bacteria
All owls cough up pellets as a part of how they digest or parasites that might have been present in the
their food. Most of the time, they swallow their prey pellets when they were fresh. Owls have powerful
whole without chewing or tearing the flesh apart. stomach acids that usually kill all the bacteria in the
This means that owls naturally have a lot more bones, pellets. Sterilizing the pellets before packaging them
feathers, and fur in their diet. After several meals of is an added precaution. The only problem you might
whole animals, an owl collects a lot of indigestible have is if you are allergic to dust. Owl pellets are
material in its gut. All this stuff is gathered in the dusty, but you can get around this by spraying them
gizzard, a muscular pouch in the owl’s digestive with a plant sprayer as you work on them, or by
system. wearing a dust mask.
The gizzard operates like a trash compactor, pressing
all the bones, fur, feathers, or other indigestible stuff
into a firm, ovalshaped ball. When the pellet gets
big enough, the owl spits it up and lets it drop to the
ground below.
Owls in the wild eat whatever is on the local menu.

In other words, owls living where there are lots of
mice will eat (you guessed it!) mice. They also eat
other things depending on what’s available, including
insects, frogs, mice, weasels, small birds, even larger
prey like porcupines. As you might expect, larger owls
like larger prey, and smaller owl species eat smaller
prey. The smallest owls, such as Canada’s Pygmy Owl
and Boreal Owl, depend on insects, small birds, frogs,
and mice. The Great Horned Owl, Canada’s most
common owl, eats a great variety of things including
ducks, porcupines, squirrels, grouse, along with its
staple food of mice.
The stuff in an owl pellet can tell you a lot about

what the owl has been eating. It can also tell you
something about the prey animal itself, because its
remains are nicely preserved in the pellet.
PREPARATION:
Owl pellets: you can buy owl pellet dissection kits • Dissecting microscopes can be used to help
from any of several science supply companies. See find and identify smaller bones. If you have
the section “Sources and Resources” at the end of dissecting microscopes, be sure your students
this activity plan for places to get owl pellets. If this know how to use them.
activity is new for you, we recommend you dissect an
owl pellet of your own as part of your preparation.
SOURCES AND RESOURCES:
1. Boreal Northwest (the recent merger of Boreal
Laboratories and Northwest Scientific) has a
For ideas on how to prepare your students so they get
comprehensive list of owl pellet education
the most out of this experience, see the section on
resources including supplies of owl pellets,
“prior knowledge” above.
dissecting kits, posters, and much more. Go to
http://boreal.com
SAFETY:
If any of your students have allergies to mice, animals, 2. Skulls Unlimited, Oklahoma City, OK. Class kits
or dust, you should provide them with dust masks to available. Go to http://www.skullsunlimited.com/
wear, or use a plant sprayer to moisten their pellets as owl-pellet-sets.htm
they work to control airborne dust particles.
3. Workman Publishing, New York: “Owl Puke” kit
PROCEDURE: includes an owl pellet, dissecting tools, sorting tray,
The student worksheet contains complete and a wonderfully written and illustrated book on
instructions on how to do this activity. Go over these the topic of owls and owl pellets. See http://www.
steps with them before allowing them to proceed. workman.com
TIPS AND ENRICHMENT: 4. Jim Cornish of Gander, Newfoundland has

• If you only have one pellet and / or would like to developed an excellent student activity on owl
do a dissection that the whole class can see, use pellets. You can download a pdf copy from http://
an overhead projector and screen. Your entire www.cdli.ca/CITE/pellet_activity.pdf
class can watch while you demonstrate how
to break up the pellet and what can be found
inside. You can arrange the bones and other
remains on a piece of plastic transparency film.
• Create a mouse “fossil” by arranging recovered

mouse bones on the surface of some wet
plaster of Paris. Allow the plaster to set, spray
the surface with cooking spray, and pour more
plaster over the bones. The spray allows the two
halves of the plaster imprint to be separated.
This will give you an artificial fossil that mimics
the challenges faced by palaeontologists who
extract delicate fossils from sedimentary rocks.
MATERIALS: of fir and dirt, a smaller one with small bones,

To complete this activity, you will need: and a third with identifiable plant bits such as
• One owl pellet seeds.
• Sheet of newspaper 10. Your next task is to identify and sort the
• Sorting tray (egg carton, plastic ice cube tray or bones. Use the chart below to help you
other container with small compartments) identify them. Place each kind of bone in its
• Fine tweezers or forceps own compartment in your sorting tray. Use
• Glue (regular white glue or hot melt glue gun) the bone identification chart to help you.
• Sheet of stiff paper or thin cardboard
• An old toothbrush (marked so that no one uses MOUSE BONE IDENTIFICATION CHART:
it by mistake to brush their teeth!) The bones and other material you got from the
• Magnifying glass (optional) pellet can tell you something about the owl’s eating
habits. Based on the “evidence”, answer the following
PROCEDURE questions:
1. Find a clean place to work and lay out all the 1. What animals did the owl eat (hint: don’t
materials as described in the list above. Be sure assume the owl ate only mice)?
you have good lighting.
2. Is there evidence of more than one animal in
3. Unwrap the owl pellet over the newspaper. the pellet? How many animals may have been
eaten by the owl to make this pellet?
4. Break the pellet in half, then into smaller
and smaller pieces. You can do this with your 3. Is there plant material in the pellet? How do
fingers, or you can pick it apart with a tool like a you think it got there?
nail or needle.
4. Select some bones from your sorting tray and
5. As you break the pellet into smaller and smaller use them to build a partial skeleton of one of
pieces, you will notice small bones. Use the the owl’s prey.
tweezers (forceps in science-speak) to place
them in the sorting tray. 5. Glue the bones onto the cardboard in the same
way they are arranged in the Mouse Bone
7. The bones may have fur tightly packed in and Identification Chart, and label them.
around them. You’ll need the small brush to
remove it. Submit your work to the Get to Know Contest
for a chance to win wild prizes & go to
8. Work through every bit of material from the
owl pellet removing any tiny bones you find. gettoknow.ca
If you find seeds, spruce needles, or other to find more free resources and activities
identifiable plant material, put this into it’s own
pile. Additional Resources:
Find more Educational Resources at:
9. When you are done taking apart the pellet, you www.gettoknow.org/education/
should have three piles, the biggest with bits
Skulls
Jaws
Shoulder
Blades
Front
Legs
Hips
Hind Legs
Assorted
Ribs
Assorted
Vertebrae
SOURCED AND ADAPTED FROM: http://www.vrml.k12.la.us/Upload/bonesortingchart.jpg

MOUSE BONE CHART

Dissecting Owl Pellets DL 444811

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