Wanted : Does anyone know how to DIY pet cremation?

[ChickenladyinMN]

I asked about 4-5 years ago about my rooster that lost his feet to frost bite. Anyways he passed away on 3-6-08 and we cannot bear to bury him and because he was soo spoiled and special to us we would like to have him cremated and put in a beautiful urn/jar on display. However we do not want to pay the expensive vet and get ashes that are mixed with other animals. If anyone has any info it would be greatly appreciated.

 

[arlee453]

I can't help with the cremation thing, but as an alternative, you might just give him a burial in a special place in your yard, and keep some of his tail feathers. You can arrange the feathers in a pretty arrangement either in a vase, or in a picture frame along with his picture, etc as a display in his memory.

Hugs and condolences on the loss of your beloved roo!

 

[hypnofrogstevie]

I was thinking a portable fireplace and some way to get the metal around it to block the ashes. Its a half A idea but it may help with other suggestions.

Sorry you lost your little guy

 

[beefy]

*brainstorming*

what if you got one of those things in the fireplace that holds up the logs... and put a bale of pinestraw or something on top with the rooster in it or maybe sandwiched between two bales (needs to get real hot --have cremated cows in rolls of hay before..). have some thing underneath like a big cake pan to catch teh remains. need some way to stoke the fire to keep straw from falling over as it burns..

i'm like arlee tho, keep a few feathers as a momento, bury him and start him a memory garden. you can get a little sign made that says "Buck's Memory Garden" or whatever. plant some purdy flowers.. his girls (if any) will like to dig in it..

 

[Cara]

I'd think burying would be more respectful and less distressing than trying to do it yourself and having it go wrong. I don't think the temperatures required to properly cremate an animal are easily obtained without commercial equipment.

If requested, you can have animals cremated individually. I had that done with two of my dogs.

 

[ole-crone]

From watching viking movies I suppose any big bonfire would do - but personally, I agree with the tail feather display - perhaps in a cut crystal vase. Then bury the rest of him in the yard and plant a beautiful garden area over him.

When our dogs die, we pick a tree or shrub to plant over them - something that symbolizes their personality.

 

[mangled]

We "creamated" a beloved dog last winter because the ground was too frozen to dig a hole large enough and we also couldn't afford the $150 plus the local vet wanted to charge.
Here's what we did. My husband cleared the burn pile out to the ground and we laid the dog down on the ground, then packed hay around him and then piled dried logs around him in a teepee shape.
We started the fire and burned it for a couple days. We just kept pushing the center coals back into themselves and laying new logs to keep it going.
When the center was just white hot, we let it smoulder, it took a couple days, but we ended up with an amount of ashes that filled a half of a big Maxwell House tin. Fancy urn, I know.
My husband spread the ashes out in the back near our sitting area.
Sorry to hear about your roo. I imagine it wouldn't take near as much work to creamate your roo. Our dog was 74 pounds when he passed.

Good luck.

Em

 

[arlee453]

My friends had a cat pass away and the vet wanted $150 to cremate him. They live in a town home and so don't have any space to bury him. I told her just to bring the cat to my house. I thought that was rediculous to charge for 'disposing' of the cat - especially as they had already just spent $1200 to try to keep a diabetic, geriatric cat alive after he slipped into a diabetic coma.

 

[ChickenladyinMN]

Thank you for all your responses and condolences, its so nice to have people who understand - most people think I'm nuts when I say that my chickens have personalities.

To Beefy - it was kind of creepy when you said Buck's garden because that was his nickname that became his name - Bucky.

 

[SpottedCrow]

Unfortunately or maybe fortunately...Tom and Slifer passed on Trash Day so they went out with the trash...I couldn't bear having the very coons digging them up like they did Whiskers my frog and Sally the Turtle and a baby crow.
I kept some of Tom's feathers, some of Slifer's feathers, her spurs, her leash and diaper and the points of her comb that fell off when she got frostbite in a "memorial box".

It's not that I didn't love them enough to do any thing with the bodies...I believe that the body is just a shell that the soul inhabits sort of like the empty casings you see with cicadas.