Yay! Owl Vomit!

My dear, dear mother who knows me way too well, sent me the most amazing gift the other day. Owl pellets! Owl pellets are the regurgitated undigestible parts of an owl's breakfast, lunch, or dinner. And if you are fortunate enough to have a friend with a family of owls roosting in your yard, they are quite easily acquired. And if you are unfortunate enough to have me for a daughter you may find yourself in your friends yard pawing through the grass and picking owl puke. Thanks mom!



I forgot to snap some photo's before I started the macerating process, so here are some generic pics of owl pellets if you have never seen them before. They are small, dry lumps of matted fur and various goodies. Kind of like a cat's hair ball but with tiny bones in it!
I tried to macerate a dead bird I found in my yard by soaking it in bleach, only to find that the bleach destroys both the flesh and the bone. So this time, after doing a little research online, I decided to go with cold water maceration. You just drop the pellets in a jar of water, make sure the lid is on tight ( I cannot over state that part) and put it in a warm location. Mine ended up residing in the sunny windowsill of my living room. Soon I had a thick, greenish brown slurry of rotting flesh, fur, twigs and bones. Again, I'm sorry, I forgot to pull out my camera. And as long as your lid is on tight, the joy of smelling said concoction can wait till it's time to separate out the bones from the gunk. Mine sat for three days.



Yes, I do have a camera! So here we are, most of the way through the treasure hunt when I finally realize I should be taking some pictures. I made a strainer out of some window screen and part of a box. I then got the unique and unenviable experience of opening a jar of rotting mice that has sat in the sun for half a week. The nearly visible wave of stench that hit me made me want to drop to my knees and thank the gods for small favors like my severe allergies and near constant sinus congestion. The flesh and bone milkshake was poured into the strainer and rinsed thoroughly to remove most of the unwanted bits. I then went through with tweezers and removed all the bone from the remaining matted clots of hair. This was a painstaking, tedious and aromatic endeavor.



Back in the jar they went, skulls, ribs, femurs, teeth. It was like being on the set of the Texas Dollhouse Chainsaw Massacre. They will now spend a few more days lounging in the sun while the remaining bits of unwanted flesh decompose.



I will return when they have finished macerating.



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