Bag of Bones

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.

StartingoverVet

Flight Instructor for hire
Lifetime Donor
10+ Year Member
Joined
Feb 17, 2010
Messages
24,120
Reaction score
8,865
Anyone know where I could get a canine "bag of bones"? We have access to them in the anatomy lab, but I like to study at home a lot, and think it would really help me to have them around as a first time anatomy student..

I searched on-line but couldn't quite locate what I needed......

And yes, I am aware they are not cheap.

Thanks in advance...
SOV.
 
Y'all don't get a bag/box of bones?
 
SOV- i asked robert our tech and he said skulls unlimited. I also heard that we may be able to do a group order, he said something about a professor or someone ordering a bunch for people who sign up. I can ask him about it this week

SCAVMA is also having a sale this week and they sell cat and dog skeletons
 
Thanks for the posts.
FYI: So far prices are as follows:

Skulls Unlimited: $450 (shipping 31.50)

Lake Forest: $399 but currently 5% off down to 379 ($45 shipping)

The Bone Room: $300 (but they don't have click to order. may not be in stock.. they say they make take 6 weeks to custom prepare them.) $22.50 shipping. no tax

Also found one Carolina.com. They are $325 but $32.50 shipping plus they charge tax (6.5%) Still chepaer than the lake and skulls though.

I am going to see what SCAVMA has before I plunge in....

Again, thanks for your help.
 
Skulls Unlimited is in Oklahoma City! Represent! They're opening a museum of osteology in a month or so and I'm totally going to visit. Plus, Mike Rowe was there with Dirty Jobs once... 😉

You can get an assembled cat skeleton for $140, that's not too bad...
 
1 bag per 16 students... not to be removed from the anatomy lab.

You got your own?

Whoa, holy crap.

Yah we got our own. I have half a dog lying about a foot away from me currently.

In undergrad anatomy it was 1 box for every 4 students (so we had to rotate taking it home) but in vet school everyone got their own box of half a dog.
 
one option you (or others) may be interested in is Dr. Whalen's virtual canine anatomy program....there's a great osteological anatomy section on there that highlights and has written information about all parts of the skeleton, mm attachments, articulations, and virtual images that open up in quicktime that you can spin around to see all views. at CSU we had one bone box for 4 people but i hardly ever went into the lab because this program was easy to use at home. i think if you email Dr. Whalen or contact VetText they will be able to send it to you for around $40 if i remember correctly.

link for a little more info:

http://www.cvmbs.colostate.edu/bms/whalen.htm
 
SOV-I'm going to write Orsini because he kept saying "dont waste ur money on a skeleton, buy some bones!" well, i have no clue where he is talking about because these prices are insane and it is cheaper to buy a skeleton lol
 
SOV-I'm going to write Orsini because he kept saying "dont waste ur money on a skeleton, buy some bones!" well, i have no clue where he is talking about because these prices are insane and it is cheaper to buy a skeleton lol

Let me know what he says, but I am guessing he means whatever you pay for a skeleton is not worth it (no value), as the only way to learn is to articulate the bones yourself(hi cost but it is worth it?).

As for the roadkill suggestions... all I can say is you people are living a completely different life than us cityfolk.
 
Let me know what he says, but I am guessing he means whatever you pay for a skeleton is not worth it (no value), as the only way to learn is to articulate the bones yourself(hi cost but it is worth it?).

As for the roadkill suggestions... all I can say is you people are living a completely different life than us cityfolk.


I'd be happy to mail you a present.... Think it counts as medical waste, or should I just not tell the post office what's inside?
 
I'd be happy to mail you a present.... Think it counts as medical waste, or should I just not tell the post office what's inside?

Can't decide which would be worse:
1) My wife opening the package before I got home?
2) My dogs opening the package before I got home?
3) The cat opening the package before I got home?
4) Philly cops opening the package before I got home?

After a long and thoughtful consideration, I think I will decline your generous offer.
 
weird, at oregon we got a whole dog for each student. made for some great conversations with waiters when we took our bones with us to happy hour.🙂
 
wow, i'm really glad we each get our own box of bones over at michigan. one whole dog per student, and we keep it for the entire semester.
 
The bones thing is annoying. With everything that we're spending, they can't roll in a few hundred more dollars for individual bone sets? Hell, Tuskegee provides students their own bones. I'd think some of the bigger schools could follow suit.
 
Let me know what he says, but I am guessing he means whatever you pay for a skeleton is not worth it (no value), as the only way to learn is to articulate the bones yourself(hi cost but it is worth it?).

It does help to be able to fit the ulna and radius together then articulate them with the humerus, but beyond that...

I suppose the inherent value would be that you can hold the bones and feel "oh yes! There's the teres major tuberosity, there's actually a bump there!"
 
Wow, I do not think I could learn this without being able to take the bones home. We get a whole set between 2 people. For the thoracic limb, I took home the right bones for one week and my partner took home the left and then we switched. Looked at the cost of replacing them if we lose them, and that was scary :scared: $500!
 
Yea, we get to take our bones home too... currently working on thoracic limb. My partner and I alternate between left and right sides :/
 
If it makes you feel better (which I'm sure it doesn't), at Ohio State we never got any bones to take home. There was a jumbled box of them that was required to stay in the anatomy lab. That was it.
 
If it makes you feel better (which I'm sure it doesn't), at Ohio State we never got any bones to take home. There was a jumbled box of them that was required to stay in the anatomy lab. That was it.

That's the way it is at KSU. 🙂 Don't worry, guys--hang in there!
 
Yeah we get a box of bones for our lab group of 4 people that has to stay in the lab. I mentioned that some other schools got their own bones to take home to one of my lab instructors, and he said that he had no idea other schools got their own! He said he definitely was going to work on getting everyone their own bones. Maybe everyone just needs to suggest it to the lab instructors. I mean heck...you dissect so many dogs throughout the year...might as well make use of the bones when you are done!
 
I am in the progress of doing this right now! it is my goal for the year 😀 we'll see what happens!
 
At ISU we get a "bone box" / every two students. Works great and now that I have learned other vet schools do it differently I am more thankful then ever for what we have here.

Flashcards and the CSU dvd work well but not the same as running your hand over the proteuberance/tuberosity/notch/whatever when you are memorizing it.
 
At UMN, there's a canine bone box for each student. Sorry, guys 🙁
 
I really don't know how you guys do it without being able to take them home.. we are so lucky at Auburn to have our red tool box of bones. me and my box of bones have gotten to know each other REAL well these last few weeks and that's probably one of the only reasons I made a good grade on the first anatomy exam. There are 95 of us, we each get at least one of every bone in the body including each vertebrae.. they did have to vary between some students getting half skulls (split right down the middle so you can see cool things like the cribriform plate) and whole skulls.. my whole skull ("Sparky") even articulates with his mandible- better half 🙂 "Sparky" even has all of his teeth. My dogs love to watch me play with my bones.. fun for the whole family needless to say.

Anyway, best of luck to you guys trying to get them at your schools.. it really is super helpful.👍
 
I really don't know how you guys do it without being able to take them home.. we are so lucky at Auburn to have our red tool box of bones.

Here at WSU we also have red tool boxes for our bones. It is quite easy to identify a first year, as we're the ones always toting those things around. They are shared between two students, but each box has a full skeleton so sharing really hasn't been an issue. Some groups rotate who gets to take the box home when, and other groups take turns taking the right and left side home. We also have several articulated skeletons in the lab, including one which has been painted to show the muscle attachments which has been a very helpful study tool. Interesting to hear how different schools do things!
 
Skulls Unlimited is in Oklahoma City! Represent! They're opening a museum of osteology in a month or so and I'm totally going to visit. Plus, Mike Rowe was there with Dirty Jobs once... 😉

You can get an assembled cat skeleton for $140, that's not too bad...

Got to visit this place today. No grand tour, sadly. Though I might not have been prepared for the stink. I did get to see some dermestid beetles (in a plastic container, but fresh from a cat head!) and shake a hand that shook Mike Rowe's. Um, squee.

And now y'all can be jealous cuz I'm ballin' with my new dog skeleton. :d
 
There are at least enough boxes of dog bones at UC Davis that each group can use one during lab periods. We can't take them off campus, but (as eventualeventer and I can attest to after tonight!) we're allowed to go into the anatomy lab 24/7 and grab a box to study. The lab guy's only real restrictions were that we shouldn't take them into the food service place on campus. :laugh:

It does help to be able to fit the ulna and radius together then articulate them with the humerus, but beyond that...

And this is precisely what we did!
 
1 bag per 16 students... not to be removed from the anatomy lab.

You got your own?

Whoa, holy crap.

Yah we got our own. I have half a dog lying about a foot away from me currently.

1 bag per 16 students?? that sucks!!!

we got a "bone box" as well...each student got their own. i couldn't imagine sharing with 16 other students. i learned so much from spending a lot of QT with my bones at home on my own time.
 
You can buy from WSU. The anatomy director's name is Nelson in the VCAPP department. He's always pumping stuff out of there. Shipped a full horse to Ross last year. He's mentioned selling a "bone box" to students from other schools too. We can take a skeletal prep class where we make our own dog skeleton for a 60$ course fee.

Go Cougs
 
That's the way it is at KSU. 🙂 Don't worry, guys--hang in there!

Yeah, but we get free Dr. Z videos! Guess that makes up for it! No, wait it doesn't. I'd still like some bones, if not my own at least something we could take home.
 
We get a bone box per three students, and that was more than sufficient. With all sorts of dire warning about how much pets like to chew on bones and how we would pay to replace damaged bones. Our bone box had a full dog and full cat skeleton. I can honestly say that after the first month, very few of the bone boxes left the lab. We have lots of skeletons up around lab, in the main hallways, etc...and the lab is open around the clock.
 
I was just elected VP of my class! one of the things i want to work on is having more sets of bones. My course organizer said that it takes about 20 hrs to clean off/prepare 1 limb. I asked how he thought the other schools spent their time to clean off so many more sets of bones and he said the it was probably a myth that other schools had more sets lol THEREFORE...if you responded on this thread that you have bones for anything less than 16 people....please PM me with your school and the course organizers name!! so I can email them and ask them about how they went about doing it.

if you guys dont PM me I may PM u lol 😀
 
We get a bone box per three students, and that was more than sufficient. With all sorts of dire warning about how much pets like to chew on bones and how we would pay to replace damaged bones. Our bone box had a full dog and full cat skeleton. I can honestly say that after the first month, very few of the bone boxes left the lab. We have lots of skeletons up around lab, in the main hallways, etc...and the lab is open around the clock.

Does anyone get to take the whale home? When I saw that, I had two thoughts - "wow, that's a whale!" and "I wonder if the bones show signs of decompression sickness". Hopefully I'll have the chance to look at it more next year.
 
Wow, BlacKAT, good for you. I know a vet who has horse skulls and limbs from burying them and digging them up a few months later when the insects and bacteria have done their work (much easier, if you are willing to wait), but that might be a little backwoods for Penn. 🙂
 
Wow, BlacKAT, good for you. I know a vet who has horse skulls and limbs from burying them and digging them up a few months later when the insects and bacteria have done their work (much easier, if you are willing to wait), but that might be a little backwoods for Penn. 🙂

LOL!!!! this is such a great idea!!!!!!!!!!! haha thanks!
 
With all sorts of dire warning about how much pets like to chew on bones and how we would pay to replace damaged bones. Our bone box had a full dog and full cat skeleton. .

I'm down a pelvis already. I wish someone had warned me... 🙂
 
Thanks to everyone who wrote me! 😍 I just sent a letter out to Michigan, Minnesota, and Oregon!
 
Congrats Blackat!!! I'm sure you'll do an awesome job!
 
The deal at CSU is that if you let your dog eat the bones even after being told that you can't take it home exactly for this reason, you replace it by personally cleaning up a new set from one of the cadavers at the end of the semester/year over break or something. We get 1 box per anatomy group of 4 people, and I've found that to be more than sufficient... but then I've only looked at it like once for the pelvic limb. I'll probably look at it one more time for the thoracic limb. I feel like such a slacker 😛. I study the articulated horse limb skeletons that are lying around pretty often though. I hate horses!
 
Does anyone get to take the whale home? When I saw that, I had two thoughts - "wow, that's a whale!" and "I wonder if the bones show signs of decompression sickness". Hopefully I'll have the chance to look at it more next year.

Take a look at the Giraffe and Elephant when you get a chance...there are some bizarre features on those skeletons. and....if you saw the whale, did you see Jimmy? the gorilla studying a human skull? I must say, I love our skeleton collection, and I really like that they are distributed throughout the school; what is out changes depending on what the first years are studying; the lab staff comes through and collects the relevant models to use in lab and replaces them with others. And when you are looking at a radiograph of an injured falcon, it is awesome to head into the anatomy lab and study a couple of articulated falcons and wings and such.
 
Top