C 4.0
Owl pellets
Sterilised barn owl pellets in two quality grades, with the sorting charts that turn a pile of bones into a food-web exercise.
Owl pellets are the cheapest real dissection in the catalogue and, for a lot of classrooms, the best one. Nothing has been killed for the lesson, there is no fixative and no smell, the material is sterile, and what comes out of it is a genuine data set: a census of what one bird ate, which a class can pool into a food web.
The two grades are the thing to get right. First quality pellets are intact, well formed and individually wrapped — they look like what a pellet is supposed to look like, which matters when each student is handed one and the shape itself is part of the explanation. Second quality pellets are broken or irregular. The bone content is not affected, so for a sorting and identification exercise they do exactly the same job at roughly a third of the price.
Buying first quality for a bone-sorting lab is a common and expensive mistake. Buying second quality for a lesson that opens with “this is what an owl pellet is” is a cheaper one.
Name these on the order
- Quality grade
- First or second. This is the whole decision, and it depends on whether the pellet's appearance is part of the lesson.
- Pack size
- Each, pack of thirty, or class pack of a hundred. A pellet per student plus spares is the usual count.
- Sterilisation
- All pellets are heat-sterilised before packing. This is not optional and is not a premium option.
- Charts
- Laminated bone sorting charts, one per pair. Without them the exercise stops at “small bones”.
- Delivery week
- Pellets keep indefinitely, so this group can be bought well ahead of the lesson and stored.
All of them appear on your written quotation before a purchase order is raised. See ordering.
C 4.1 Prices
Published prices
Catalogue figures for this group, reviewed September 2026. The whole catalogue is priced on one page if you would rather compare groups — see prices.
| Grade | Each | Pack of 30 | Class pack of 100 |
|---|---|---|---|
| First qualityIntact, well formed, wrapped individually | $3.75 | $108.00 | $345.00 |
| Second qualityBroken or irregular, bone content unaffected | $1.10–$1.40 | $36.00 | $112.00 |
| Bone sorting chartLaminated, one per pair of students | $2.40 | $64.00 | $198.00 |
Both pellet figures — $3.75 each first quality and $1.10 to $1.40 each second quality — are current published unit prices.
Catalogue prices are USD per unit at the pack size stated, exclude shipping, handling, hazardous-materials surcharges and any applicable tax, and are catalogue ranges for planning a requisition rather than an offer or a quotation. Reviewed September 2026. A figure for your order is confirmed on a written quotation. See the disclaimer.
Questions Owl pellets
Questions about this group
Specific to owl pellets. The general questions — ordering, purchase orders, substitutions, returns — are on the FAQ page.
Which grade should I order?
If each student is handed a whole pellet and the shape is part of the explanation, first quality. If the class is sorting and identifying bones, second quality — the bone content is the same and you will buy roughly three times as many for the same money. A sensible compromise for a large class is a handful of first quality to show and second quality to work on.
Are they safe to handle?
Yes. Every pellet is heat-sterilised before packing, which is standard for teaching material and is not an optional extra here. Ordinary classroom hygiene still applies — hands washed afterwards, and the usual guidance about not eating at the bench.
How many bones are in one pellet?
A barn owl pellet typically contains the remains of one to four small mammals, so somewhere between a few dozen and a couple of hundred identifiable bones, with skulls being the useful ones for identification. Variation between pellets is real and is itself a good discussion: it is why pooling the class results gives a better picture than any single pellet does.
Do they keep?
Indefinitely, in a dry container at room temperature. This is the one group in the catalogue you can safely buy a year ahead when a budget allows, which is why the class pack is usually the right break.
Catalogue The other groups
The rest of the catalogue
Frogs, fetal pigs, cats, rats, mink, perch, sharks and the rest of the dissection sequence, at the injection grade the lesson actually needs.
Earthworms, crayfish, grasshoppers, squid, starfish, clams and the survey sets that carry a whole phylum sequence in one order.
Algae, protozoa, bacteria, fungi, plants and live invertebrates, shipped on a calendar set by the organism rather than by the warehouse.
Scalpels, scissors, probes, forceps, pins and trays, and the assembled student and instructor sets built from them.
Telephone with the lesson, not the catalogue number
Tell us what the lesson has to show, how many students are working in pairs and which week it is scheduled for. We will name the species, grade, size, fluid and pack that fit and put it on a written quotation.
Niles Biological, Inc. · 9298 Elder Creek Rd, Sacramento, CA 95829