Dissection Head and Neck (layer 1)

Neck

1. Make a dorsal midline incision from the ?poll? to the ?withers? (to a point level with the olecranon). If you are dissecting a horse remove the mane (juba).
2. Starting at the most cranial part of the dorsal midline incision cut ventrally caudal to the ears all the way to the ventral midline (this is done on both right and left sides and the cuts should match up).
3. Next, extend the incision from the cranial part of ?withers? ventrally.
4. Carefully free the skin from the underlying tissue and leave the skin flap attached to the trunk at the cranial thoracic inlet. This flap of skin will be used to cover the specimen and help slow the drying process.

Head

1. Make an incision around the eye, ear, mouth/nose and horn. These incisions should entirely encircle the structure. In the horse, extra care should be used to avoid entering the nasal diverticulum (?false nostril?). To accomplish this insert a finger into the false nostril to determine its extent (direct you finger dorsally).
2. Make a dorsal midline incision extending from the poll rostrally to the incision that has been made around the nose.
3. CAREFULLY reflect the skin ventrally trying to leave the cutaneous faciei m. Many dissections of the head are damaged at this stage. There is not a lot of subcutaneous tissue on large portions of the head so if you start cutting too deep during the removal of the skin, several important structures can and will be removed. When this step is complete, you should have a ?mask? that can be used to cover up the specimen.

On both the head and neck the cutaneous muscles should be removed. Where appropriate begin removing subcutaneous tissue and fat to reveal the underlying structures.