DD asked me to disect a rabbit today for educational purposes...

[Idreamofdaleks]

so like a freak I did it

(have only ever disected a mackerel previously whilst at school)rabbit was already dead btw

It was quite educational. DD is going to tell her teacher and her class on Monday. They already know her favourite thing to do with her parents is bat watching so this is doubtless more nails in the coffin of our Adams Family image

I was quite freaked hence the mumsnet confessional....how many freak points would you award for this behaviour?

AT least 17.

as in 17% freaky?

can anyone out-freak me?

Did you lay out the intestines to one side to show the under lying organs?

Loads of fat on the kidneys isn't there???

I'm going to be doing this for the sixth form soon, but on a rat. Facinating stuff

Do I win???

Actually I didn't have the nerve to do a full laying out of organs so I only looked at a few of them. Now I have more confiodence I think I shall do a more ambitious job on the next one!

Why is there fat on the kidneys, MB?

Rat definitely trumps rabbit

I don't think you're a freak - but I'm a scientist so did lots of that kind of thing at uni.

Hmmm, OTOH, not sure I'd do it at home!

Just storage. Fat builds up in all sorts of places, but it is a living tissue, and not just a lump of lard IYSWIM!

Ooh, ohh, I think I can out freak you.

At the age of 9 our pet sheep was butchered and as I had been to watch the butcher let us keep the lungs.

Which I took into school for show and tell and demonstrated blowing them up!

Oh I do that every year! The kids like to see lungs.

We also do a heart dissection and a kidney, but these are ordinary butchers shop items.

I'm always amazed that the kids don't realise that the kidney in a steak and kidney pie is actually a real kidney!

Wish I had a teacher like you mb, mine was so grossed out she reported me to the headteacher and I got a letter sent home complaining I had traumatised the class (had I feck!)

Good job she hadn't come round the day before when my friend and I were playing with the eyes on the kitchen table.....

Fat's all round the kidneys mainly as a protective layer - they are relatively exposed compared to other vital organs (not well shielded by bones like heart/lungs/pelvic organs) and so have fairly dense fat around them. The great thing about that is trying to find the adrenal gland - which is similar in colour to fat, and sits near the top pole of the kidney - among it all!

I don't think any of you are freakish, but then I am a pathologist!!

no animal dissecting on my biology course - new regulations apparently , although i am secretly pleased cauzse i really like bunnies. dissecting pig's organs didn't bother me so much at college as i do love a bacon sarnie! But eat a rabbit? No way. (or ducks. or deer. or anything we feed in the park. where would u eat a llama anyway?)

I imagine you would curry llama meat, as it has a goatish sort of diet and look about it.

I would eat almost anything I hadn't personally killed, and would not qualm at killing fish or chickens to eat. I cannot kill things with fur, I just can't. I know it's not rational, when I am perfectly happy to eat them.

I remember dissecting piglets in biology,we had one each ffs.This was in the about 1979 in canada.
There was a pregnant cat dissected on display in the classroom