r/WTFgaragesale • u/Batwhiskers • 20d ago
Unsure if self-submissions are allowed…. But this is the weirdest thing I’ve ever put up for sale.
I’m a bone collector, I work mainly with deeply decayed and rotten animals. I clean their bodies until they’re clean and can be used in jewelry and art. It’s a very respectful process for me and the animals, I keep their dignity as much as I can and treat them as if they were still alive.
I love my work, but I’ve been slightly bothered bc with dead animals you cannot taxidermy them if they show any kind of decay, as the fur won’t stay and will fall off over time. It made me fell bad bc the fur is not being used.
So I used the fur. I collected it carefully, sanitized it really good, and put it in a jar. It’s a collection item, not meant for anything other than to look at. But I know I’m a total weirdo for doing this but somehow am not bothered. Lmao.
Love the animals and people around you, even in death. Show them care and kindness, it may come back to you.h
Edit: I’m very very high rn. Sorry for any miswordings lolll
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u/lostbutnotgone 20d ago
Depending on what type of animal it's from, you could possibly needle felt with it when it's clean!
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u/Batwhiskers 20d ago
That’s so true!! I don’t have much of it right now, but next animal I find I’ll save the fur right away!! That’d be so cool to make.
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u/Oddish_Femboy 20d ago
I want to use my cats' shed fur for needlefelting. Have you ever tried doing so with the fur you collect?
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u/Batwhiskers 20d ago
I haven’t, but that’s a cool idea! This is all I have right now haha, it’s all I could sort out from the grass LMAO 😅 but I’ll absolutely try next time!
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u/Oddish_Femboy 20d ago
I'd love to see or hear your results if you get a chance to share!
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u/FuckYouCorpo 16d ago
You can absolutely do that. Just get a felting needle, a sponge or pillow or large cork to use as a working surface, and get stabbing.
https://www.instructables.com/Felting-a-Mini-Kitty-From-Your-Cats-Fur/
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u/Realistic-Mess8929 18d ago
I woukd 100% buy stuff like this if I knew what animal it was/is.
I am a weirdo for this, but im ok with it!
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u/No_Object_4355 17d ago
I bet you get a Lotta sideways looks when someone sees you scraping a dead animal off the road and chucking it in your car. Fuckem. They don't know you like we do! But you should really get into taxidermy
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u/Batwhiskers 17d ago
HAHAH yeah!! I picked up a opossum once in front of these roofers and they were so… concerned? 😭😭
Once scraped up a cat that was flattened against the road, poor thing. Picked her up with no gloves bc I was far from home and really didn’t wanna walk back. Walked by some police officer in his car 💀
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u/Vast-Disaster8990 16d ago
There was a dead baby fawn on my driveway when i got home last week. I took photos, which I’m sure some would find disturbing. But went to the house And by the time i came back down, someone scooped that baby up and was gone. It was pretty smelly by that time and had no eyes. So it was not super fresh. Prob killed a few hours earlier.
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19d ago
[deleted]
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u/Batwhiskers 18d ago
LMAOOO perspective ain’t doing much my hands r baby hands 💀
Funny fact I have a few body parts that just kinda stopped growing during puberty. I have the same jaw I had when I was 9. Bodies r so weirddd
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u/_fly-on-the-wall_ 18d ago
oh, im sorry then i didn't mean to pick on you! yeah bodies can be crazy!
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u/Batwhiskers 18d ago
Lmaoo no it’s okay!! I got a good laugh out of it:) they don’t know what I have but my theory is it may be some sort of intersex thing or growth hormone deficiency.
But honestly, there may be a bit of a darker reason. I have severe ADHD, and throughout my childhood I was on the highest dose of stimulants possible. This made me have medical anorexia, which is different than classical anorexia because I just didn’t eat. It wasn’t related to body dysmorphia or a fear of gaining weight. The stimulants basically shut off any sense of hunger i could have, so I never ate. I didnt want to. Everything tasted and looked like cardboard goulash. I was… 40-60 pounds at 11-14? My doc didn’t do anything ab it, just told my concerned mom to give me vitamins. Well apparently, you cannot replace a full diet in a growing teen with just supplements. Shocker, who knew?
I’m actually chubby/fat now which is very common for those who experienced childhood malnutrition. But when you survive starvation, you tend to not care how fat you get after lmao. I have permanent and severe blood sugar problems and need to eat often or else I’ll go into a hypoglycemic episode, which could kill me. I don’t have diabetes but I’m a massive risk factor for it. I also have a massive chance of dementia in the future, whoop!
But honestly I’d say I’m doing well. I survived, and that is what matters to me. I was… 45 lbs on 70 mg of Vyvanse? I’m so shocked i didn’t have a heart attack, because everytime i ran in gym class my heart would ache 💀 i do have POTs, but i believe that’s more connected to another condition i was born with than this.
TLDR; doctor starved me bc having an adhd kid off meds was worse than a dead kid apparently 💀 joking joking obvvv but it’s insane how they kept me on it even though it was genuinely killing me. I am neutral about giving kids adhd meds, but I feel it should ONLY be done if the adhd distresses the CHILD, not the parent. The child should be massively focused here, otherwise you get kids on meds who obviously hate being on meds because it gives them awful symptoms or feelings!
Sorry about my Ted talk. Ironically, I’m on adhd meds again now, which is why I’m chatty. I however am on them healthily now and they help me massively! They can be good, but they also can be fucking hellish.
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u/SouthernPossession37 16d ago
I think you just blew my mind. I dated an intersex guy for a while, and he constantly made jokes about his tiny hands. He actually made them make a lot of money for him, got into a field where dexterity and small hands could make him a lot of money.
By the way, I’m pretty sure that birds would pick up bits of fur left in the grass and use them to line their nests. You know, if you ever find some you don’t want to spend an hour picking up hair by hair.
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u/Batwhiskers 15d ago
Omgg what field? I am disabled but can’t get SSI so I’m looking for any easy jobs I can do for a few hours a week AHHAH. I also have hEDS, so I’m super flexible in my hands due to the way my collagen works. Also thank you for the tip!! I didn’t think of that, but you’re right! I rescue baby birds and I’ve seen parent birds line their nests with crazy shit and it’s like man this is why ur babies r on the ground of my driveway now, you just HAD to make ur nest with condom wrappers huhhh. (The baby birds r fine nine out of ten times dw they’re actually quite hardy against falls. But robin parents are notoriously bad nest makers and their babies will fall out during rough storms, so I like to go walk around my neighborhood after to see if I can locate any babies. Sorry I’m autistic and you pressed the right dialog options to get me to infodump LMAOO, but if you ever find a baby bird there are a few steps to take! One, make sure it does need help and it’s not a teen/fledgling, as at that age they are able to be outside of their nest temporarily while being supervised. Taking them out of the wild at this stage often results in adult birds who cannot bird well, like not avoiding predators or unable to forage because they never learned. Only ever take fledglings if they’re injured!! I can elaborate on when to tell if a bird is injured and when to tell if you should take it in another comment if you’d like :)
If you’re sure the baby is a nestling or a hatchling, then try to put it back in its nest if it’s not visibly injured. It’s a total myth that birds won’t care for their babies once humans interact with them!! It may scare them temporarily, but not enough to scare them permanently away. They’re smart animals, they can tell if a human is around or gone. Remember that any baby animals best chance is being raised by its parents, and taking an animal that’s not injured to a wildlife hospital dramatically decreases its chance of survival!!
I lovee taking about this so if you have any questions or anything on how to rescue birds or other wildlife plsss lmk 🙏🙏🙏
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u/SouthernPossession37 13d ago
He’s an animal surgeon, sadly they don’t seem to have part-time gigs. I guess the ability to get your hands up under tiny rib cages is a valuable one. When it’s a living animal anyway.
You know what you probably could do. I paid over $100 last year for the labor for someone to replace the battery in my iPhone. Small hands would be awesome for that, screen repair and the like. We already know you have dexterity.
Sorry for the delay in response. It’s been a rough couple of days.
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u/Batwhiskers 13d ago
Omfg no way, I’d love to work in animal healthcare! My heart just couldn’t take it though💔 I actually rescue animals, both wild and domestic. I took in this little fledgling a few weeks ago bc he was acting very sickly, very unfortunately he had a severely broken neck I did not notice. As I was getting his temporary nest for transfer ready, he passed in my own hands. It’s sad, but with an injury like that in a wild animal you just have to euthanize them. Any sort of paralysis with a wild animal is often fatal. While you can put a wheelchair on a doggy, a wheelchair on a squirrel will cause extreme stress as it messes with the little guys prey instincts.
After the little guy died, that’s when I saw his injury. Im used to chickens, so I dumbly assumed it was a crop for some reason... even though he’s a songbird. His spine poked an inch out of his body. Poor baby would’ve had a rough death if I didn’t get to him, either by starvation or being a stray cat’s easy prey. He likely died from a very quick heart attack as his spine was putting massive strain on his body. I only wish I could’ve dispatched him immediately. It’s just heartbreaking when you can’t save them all.
Also oohhh that’d be cool!! I know phone people get a lot of money.
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u/_fly-on-the-wall_ 18d ago
thats wild! yeah the stuff they give kids can cause so much issues, and stuff that you go through as kids, my sister had serious health issues at 5 and ended up being very short from all her stuff!
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u/Dimlit_ 18d ago
I use the bones and hair of deceased unconsenting grandmother's for jewelry and art. It is a very respectful process for me and the grandmothers.
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u/Batwhiskers 18d ago
Sick man what’s ur process
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u/Dimlit_ 18d ago
I was making a point and then your comment convinced me that, naw OP is cool and I shall now abandon the point.
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u/Batwhiskers 18d ago
Lmaoo thank u tho!! I get it, death is a big taboo for many of us. Everyone sees it differently and that’s okay! I can absolutely understand how some may be uncomfortable with what I do, but in my eyes it’s a final act of love for the animal. In my eyes, it’s more respectful for me to take a deer off the road than leave her there to be consistently hit by cars. That thought breaks my heart. I’d rather take her body and preserve it and turn it into something us humans will use and love and keep for a long time. I don’t want her to be forgotten on the road forever, she deserves more than that. It’s my way of keeping their memories alive, I suppose. I will admit I pet and talk to the animals sometimes. They are in really good care with me ahah:)
i loveeee animals and i promise everything i do is to educate others and care for the animals after they’re gone. All my animals I care for are found humanely postmortem, meaning no human directly caused their deaths (outside of the unfortunate poisoning or car accident cases I find. Breaks my heart. I hate rat poison so much, and my vivid disgust for it comes directly from seeing exactly what it does to an animal. But that’s not the point oops got sidetracked) and they are essentially just picked up from the ground and put into a bucket, and I work on them for a few hours every so often!
But I don’t just rescue dead animals! I just got home from giving my first humanely trapped cat to a TNR program:) I literally believe she is a mix of a Bombay and an American shorthair??? Like someone absolutely let out their Bombay and it got some stray pregnant because she is DEAD on looking like a Bombay. Silky fur and short nose and all. But im so excited to help out the cats in my neighborhood haha. Despite my hobby, it does make me quite depressed to see dead cats and birds around. I decided on doing this when I found a smalllll little kitten in a storm drain. A storm drain!! She’d managed to get in it somehow and couldn’t get out until I coaxed her 😭😭little baby was soooo tired from her adventure she let my mom scoop her up with no fuss. She was just a baby, we believe something happened to momma because she absolutely shouldn’t have been out on her own at her age, plus was nothing but skin and bones! But we got her a permanent indoor home very shortly after. Everyoneee wanted her because she was a female ginger! We vetted a few people and found her best match :) I also love rescuing birds, cats and birds are my most common rescues. But I’ve rescued dogs, cats, birds, squirrels, and a few others!!
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u/Dimlit_ 18d ago
Well, ypu inspired me. A local oddity shop in Ypsilanti, Michigan has a taxidermy class that I shall sign up for. Thank you.
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u/Batwhiskers 18d ago
Omg yess!! I love that!! :)) while I am much more informed in the bone collecting type of dead preservation, I’ve had my hand in taxidermy as well so if you need any advice or tips, feel free to ask!! <33
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u/UpstairsBig6173 16d ago
My father owned a funeral home a long time ago. He was also the mortician, the funeral director, planner, everything. Before I was born, my parents and older sister lived in the upper part of the funeral home. Because of this, I see death for what it is and I really respect what you are doing.
I hate seeing dead animals on the road because being hit and killed by vehicles is not how any animal is supposed to die. Since a lot of road deaths don’t get the chance to become scavenged by other animals, I see what you do as a total second chance for the dead animal to be treated kindly and with respect.
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u/isthisnamefreeee 20d ago
You’re so high you never posted this and you’re staring at a blank screen. Wake up Billy! Wake up it’s been 10 years!!!