An amateur taxidermist has gone viral after sharing her latest invention: a rat phone case with a tail “wrist strap”.
While many people have turned to upcycling and DIY to save a few pennies, one thrifty woman may gone a step too far by creating a product out of a dead rodent.
Jessie Gillespie, a farmer from Seattle, Washington, has constructed a “functional” phone case out of the deceased animal, leaving Facebook users shaking their heads at the horrifying item.
Taking to the social media site to share her design, the post has already racked up over 9,000 likes. Images show the hollowed-out rat’s furry skin stretched out over the back of an iPhone, with its flattened face stuck in the corner.
Although the rodent’s tiny feet and eyeballs have been removed by Jessie, its whiskers and ears remain intact.
“People either love it or hate it,” she told NeedToKnow.online, going on to explain the process. “First I processed the rats.
“I removed the skins with a scalpel, set the body aside for my dermestid beetle colony, and tanned the hides into literal rat leather: like you would with sheepskin.
“Then I took a wallet-style phone case and used a ton of E6000 glue to affix it to the outside.
I trimmed the pelts to fit and used the scraps to fill in uncovered space.
“The dangling tail, I mummified in a box of salt, and I attached it to the phone case in the spot where you’re supposed to hang a charm or a wrist strap.
“I get the animals from pest removal instances where they are euthanized, from roadkill and in the case of the rats, from feeder rats that our pet snakes reject.
“Our freezer died, and all the feeder rats defrosted, so I got creative with 20 rats that would otherwise have been thrown away.”
After sharing her unusual accessory on Facebook, users rushed to the comments’ section to share a variety of opinions.
One person wrote: “As a rat owner, I’m horrified. As a bad taxidermy enthusiast, I love it. Very conflicted on my feelings now, thank you.”
“I bet this would make a great bra,” wrote another person.
“If I saw someone out in public with this phone case I would assume they’re clinically insane ngl love it lol,” said a third user.
[sic] Another person said: “This is art in its purest form.”
Someone else wrote: “As a rat lover. Im sad.” [sic]
“Imagine dying and your made into a phone case,” said another user followed by a laughing emoji. [sic]
“Does the tail give a better signal?,” wrote someone else. [sic]
Jessie says that this isn’t the first item that she has made using rats.
She added: “I have made a wide variety of animal hide leathers, and a few taxidermy rats.
“I make jewellery with rat paws and tails, mostly earrings and pins, some of which I position into different gestures.
“I also made a rat skin bra top for a costume piece for a post-apocalyptic festival I attend “I have always been fascinated with biology and animals, since I was small.
“I remember finding opossum bones in the woods when I was small, and collected the teeth – but that was the best way for me to look at an opossum up close!
“I work on a farm and part of what we did was raise meat animals, and it hurt me not to use every last bit of an animal that we butchered .
“Some people think that this is disrespectful to do, but we wear leather all the time and it’s normal.
“I think it would be more disrespectful to throw part of a living creature away just because I didn’t find it useful.”
