For those that feed whole prey...

I hope this doesn't offend anyone or give the impression that I do not respect the animals that nourish my Waverli but does anyone else get curious about the anatomy and take a look? I always take the intestines and stomach out because for one I don't want her eating the grain based stomach/intestinal contents and two because she likes to "finger paint" with it all over the floor and it grosses out everyone in the family because the whole downstairs smells like crap. A few nights ago I came across a pretty fat mouse from my RP order and While I don't take out anything from animals that small, I was curious if she was pregnant and if so how far along? So I opened her up and found, I think, 6 fetuses that looked nearly all developed except for being a little small. I was able to see the individual placentas and sacs as well as the tiny developing fingers and itty bitty tails. I found it incredibly fascinating and then I gave it all to Wav who didn't care I messed with her dinner.

I was the one in biology class that refused to dissect because I didn't support the industry and I felt it was cruel and useless to let kids cut up animals and make a joke about it when they would not be using that knowledge for their futures. Now, however, I feel I've learned way more about biology and anatomy than I ever could have in high school. I used the sheep butchering experience to teach my younger stepbrother about animals and respect, because I felt it was extremely important for him to learn about life. He actually enjoyed it and learned alot. I keep going back to the idea if only somehow children who had a true, sincere interest in learning about animals could be able to apprentice some raw feeders or farmers that do process their own animals humanely that they could spend a few hours learning about the different organs and the placements and functions. I know I sure appreciated the help from Levi as all of us would when cutting up a 90 lb animal. It would be such a different experience for them rather than cutting up an animal that doesn't even resemble the live counterpart and then throwing them in the trash. Sorry for the rambling- it's just really been on my mind!

My son's the one that loves when I pick up an order, and there's still parts in it that shouldn't be. I picked up some trachea and gullets today, and he was playing with them and putting them together, trying to see how they work. He also loves to see the kidneys and the huge differences between the way they look in different animals. He would LOVE to see an animal butchered I think, and I am planning on having him go hunting with my brother when he's older for just such a reason. I tried to gross him out once by telling him about dissecting animals in biology, but he's fascinated. He wants to be a coroner now!!!

I've never really stopped and thought "okay, time to discover!". I actually DID dissect the rat/eyeball/frog/worm in science, though.

I do however think it's -really cool- that you were able to experience those things. Especially the mouse. That is just amazing.

I refused to touch the heart we had to dissect. These days not only do I feed heart I eat it too.

Actually in the UK we only had to do science until we were 16, and it didn't include much dissection. A heart and a kidney. Watched our teacher dissect a lung.

I've learnt much more about anatomy since I started in archaeology (and gained an interest in hides) and started raw feeding.

It's so funny you should bring this up now. Just the other day, I was remarking to myself how much I was learning about the anatomy of prey animals. If it wasn't for my cats, there's no way I'd be cutting into little critters, but now I not only do it, I know how to do it cleanly, from tons of practice!