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How to Mummify a chicken
Or as my husband likes to call it, the undead chicken. My family has a weird sense of humor. But, in all seriousness, as I update this post 5 years later, this has made for one of our most memorable homeschool history lessons. When we cover Mystery of History 1 again, I plan to do a variation on this as a homeschool science lesson and test different mummification objects.
For the first two parts on how to mummify a chicken
Part 1 of How to Mummify a chicken
Part 2 of How to Mummify a chicken
How to Mummify a chicken, wrapping the chicken
So, this chicken has been sitting mummifying on my counter for about a month now. Actually, at the point I’m writing this, it’s now been sitting mummified for 2 weeks.
First, we started off with a very serious lecture about following directions and the serious consequences of not following, as in you don’t get to help anymore.
Then we took the chicken out of the salt/baking soda/baking powder mix, and started wiping it down. I pounded on it a bunch to get the mixture out of its’ cavity, and it took a lot of paper towels to get all of that off. Now usually I’ll use towels for messes, but this was one I didn’t want to be throwing in the wash with everything else. For some strange reason…..
Then we lightly brushed on oil that had some herbs soaking in it. They of course all had to take turns, but I’ll spare you pictures of each kid trying it out.
Afterwards we patted it dry again with a paper towel.
Then the kids quite happily tore up more paper towels and stuffed the cavity of the chicken while also putting in some spices (every time I see this picture of Princess, I’m reminded her hair looks like this because she tried to cut it herself). There were a few arguments about who got to put in what spices (which were basically the whole spices I’d gotten for a failed 5 senses experiment, my kids so were not going to be blindfolded).
Then they all got to take turns wrapping up the mummy. We individually wrapped each wing and leg, and I explained that with real mummies they wrapped each foot. The mummy was wrapped in (real sadness here) some of my favorite muslin fabric, oh the sacrifices I make for my kids. But, I figured that was better than cartoon character fabric…… The fabric was dipped in a solution of glue and water, the closest we were going to get to resin soaked fabric.
Then they settled in rather impatiently for it to dry after the horrible torture of cleaning up their work. TORTURE, I say.
And, finally I present to you, the CHICKEN MUMMY OF DOOM. That has been sitting on my counter for two weeks now, and I really don’t know what to do with it now. I hate to just throw it away, but at the same time I don’t want to keep it there forever. I’m sure if I put it outside I’ll collect an interesting assortment of vermin…….
And, if you don’t want to go through the whole process, here’s a few other options for learning about this:
All Things Beautiful (I just linked to her Ancient Egypt section, because it’s cool)
Comments
17 responses to “How to Mummify a chicken”
Wow! So it worked. We tried to do a peeled apple, but it did not turn out. We didn't do all those steps though so that might have been the problem. We just attracted a lot of fruit flies :).
You are such an awesome mom and teacher to do all these experiments with your children!
ROFL! It really looks hilarious sitting there all mummified hehehe
Very cool that it worked – you must be very happy about that. My husband would not be happy about a mummified chicken sitting on our counter – he doesn't even like the apple dolls, never mind a chicken.
I still can't decide if this is really cool, or just competely disgusting. The end result is intersting, though. Maybe, you should photo it in all sorts of poses, and let the kids write some stories for it 🙂
I have been wondering about your mummifed chicken. I even told my husband about it.
I tend to be with Leah, I can't decide if it is way cool or disgusting. It is cool it worked for you, but I don't think I could do a chicken on my counter for two weeks, no matter what I did to it.
This is amazing, and how many kids in the world can say their mom helped them mummify a chicken?!
How about freezing it to make it last longer? And then throw it out frozen. Of course, wrap it up well so nothing can get to it. A coffin might help. 😉
Wow, can't believe this worked! I think you should make a beautiful box for it like the Egyptian mummy cases, and keep it on display in your living room. Forever.
I was actually going to suggest building a pyramid in your yard to host your mummified chicken. Or at least making a sarcophagus before you “bury” it. It looks pretty impressive!
That was a serious labor of love for learning, and one suprisingly cute mummy chicken!
Oh my goodness, that is SO funny!!! It's hysterical and terrifying all at the same time! LOL
I would love to come homeschool at your house!! I think we will have to try this when we talk about Egypt ~ or maybe I'll just show them your post!
So cool. Will have to keep this in mind for the future. Right now,I will stick with my frogs and caterpillars or whatever comes next along those lines (although I will draw the line at snakes).
[…] Make a chicken mummy- I had a mummified chicken sitting on my counter for 2 months. All of my guests were quite impressed. […]
[…] How to Mummify a chicken-We will be doing this again as part of our history studies this year, so you’re sure to hear about it, the kids were excited to hear we’d be doing it again. […]
[…] What’s a study of ancient times without learning about mummies? Let your kids experience what was involved in the mummification process by letting them mummify an action figure or even a whole chicken. […]
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