WARNING GROSS - turtle dissection

If you know anything about B, you know that his collecting this turtle was not going to end with him simply taking a look at the turtle and letting her go. It seems we can't get any animal and not make it into some kind of project. This one, he got grandma to help him with. How you might ask? She has told stories of her father bringing home snappers in burlap sacks and skinning them out to eat. Since grandma knows how to do this, B recruited her for help. Can we all say, "grandma gets the award for being the best on this project?!" Anyway....the spent part of an afternoon exploring the biological facts of the turtle he caught in the swamp.

the beginning
cutting the skin to remove the shell and meat (the legs)

removing the underside of the turtle to see the organs

insides

heart

eggs - see I told you it was female (see previous Swamp Thing post for that lesson)

bladder

kidney

lung

ovaries

small intestines

stomach

tracea

cleaned out shell, which B intends to dry and keep - not sure how that's going to work because of the soft shell

At this point, many of the organs have been preserved for B's collection, the meat pieces (legs) have been skinned and are in the freezer (some dream about eating them has been talked about, hopefully I'm doing something else that night!), and the shell is drying. Biology lesson - complete!

B on an Internet Radio Talk Show

Every week B listens to an internet radio talk show called Pet Fish Talk. Recently, he was a guest on the show. Wanna listen? http://www.petfishtalk.com/shows/090610.htm


B recommends you go to the above link, then go part way down the page and follow the directions to download the mp3 file. He is on the last 45 mintues of the show, so you can fast forward. The topic of discussion is the Firemouth breeding project that B has been conducting - with success. He now has 2 breeding pairs and they have each had a batch of babies, which he plans to sell to the store he works at when they are big enough. Money making project? Gotta love that!

On the above webpage, you will also see where B is described - with regard to his participation on the show. Wow, my boy is a star - of sorts.

Song Bird Breeding Facility

Ah, another field trip where B left saying, "Mom, can I have a ......." The 4H Vet Science club visited a local song bird breeder. I didn't actually go on this field trip, so the details I am sharing are via the student. But now, B wants to raise a set of love birds. Thankfully, the answer is now and I didn't even have to be the bad guy. I just reminded him that I didn't know where we were going to be living in the fall and that I would hate for him to start on a project that could get interrupted when our housing status changes. Maybe he will forget in the meantime?!

nesting box with outside 'gate' taken off

nesting box with gate on

row, up on row of breeding cages

row up on row.......