What do you do with your dead (chickens, ducks, quail, etc...)

[perchie.girl]

Do you go visit her there?

I have a couple of times.... Shes got a HUGE pasture and a 12 year old that dotes on her.... The grandaughter of the owner. Its up in between my house and here... A little mountain town called Descanso.

There are about ten or twelve horses on the whole eighteen acres... Which used to belong to a Cutting horse trainer. So there are arenas and barns though No horse is in a barn... The woman is Also the Owner of the feed store I bought feed at. and she has a huge network of people that are her friends... Farriers, Vets, Trainers, When she took Katee in She paid for vet care and farrier work... then doctored Katees ulcerated eye. Poked it on a yucca...

Her place really not a boarding stable Or a retirement farm... just loves horses and wants to help. and told me Katee could stay with her as long As I want... I pay a minimal fee for board... And If something happens to me she would have a home for life there.

Rita was Katees Guardian Angel.

deb

 

[room onthebroom]

research IN our area there are fire laws... Though you could do a fire pit as long as its screened... To keep embers from traveling... But technically you cannot burn trash in your fireplace... I am a worrier.

Room and I live in the same county....

deb

I do have a screened in fire pit, but we'd have to be extremely careful with the weather conditions. Sticking with my 'no passing judgements' law, I just gotta say there would be something weird to me about burning one in the fireplace. I don't know why, just a mental glitch of mine.

California has laws about burying horses on your property.... With a mostly resounding NO as the answer.

I have lost three horses over fifty years. Each got necropsies.... Afterwards each got picked up by Dead animal collectors.... Same guys pick up animals off the freeways and roads...

One place where I boarded lost a foal during birth... They buried it on the property with a lump of sugar in its mouth....

I have had friends who had to have Draft horses put down... They took them to the burial site and the vet gave them the injection.... The hole was dug with a back hoe and it was a simple matter of rolling the horse into the hole. This was in the main pasture on a hill... All the other horses came to say good buy... Then for years afterward She said there would be one or two standing on the hill next to the grave.... Keeping watch.

Yep the hole has to be deep layered with lime and lime on top before covering....

deb

I have hand dug a hole in the early 1980's and pulled it with a truck, then made the hole to fit LOL didn't get it deep enough..hip bone was sticking out for decades. May still be.

I had 2 that were around 30- 35 yrs old and foundered.. the vet,after 2yrs of trying to cure them, said to put them down, but he wanted $150 to put down and the same to dispose of the body EACH.. so $600 back in 1990's .. While I was looking for a rendering place to take those 2... the 3rd horse that was fine until a house burned, Smoke drifted in and he got pneumonia. I found him dead. So I rented a backhoe. Hole was about 6' deep x 6x 24 ish ... for all 3 cost was $100 and the price of bullets .. broke my heart since one was a pony born there I had her since I was a kid.
Disturbed a cow that had been buried there... how do bones last that long? Grandparents were the last to have cows in the 1930's as far as anyone remembered.

Both of these posts are so sad, but I'll take it all, the good, the bad, the funny, the sad... I love hearing everybodys stories.

Not strange at all. Death is part of the circle of life.... We all have ways to say good by... and rituals for burial... And Really it should be shared with humor and poignent stories.

Shows our soft side when we have to make the hard decisions... I know the hell you go through with your birds....

I am thinking that sometimes people dont take into consideration what happens when we take on the responsibility of providing a good life for our birds... and the responsibliity of a good humane death.... what ever the reason.

deb

Well put Deb!

I have a couple of times.... Shes got a HUGE pasture and a 12 year old that dotes on her.... The grandaughter of the owner. Its up in between my house and here... A little mountain town called Descanso.

There are about ten or twelve horses on the whole eighteen acres... Which used to belong to a Cutting horse trainer. So there are arenas and barns though No horse is in a barn... The woman is Also the Owner of the feed store I bought feed at. and she has a huge network of people that are her friends... Farriers, Vets, Trainers, When she took Katee in She paid for vet care and farrier work... then doctored Katees ulcerated eye. Poked it on a yucca...

Her place really not a boarding stable Or a retirement farm... just loves horses and wants to help. and told me Katee could stay with her as long As I want... I pay a minimal fee for board... And If something happens to me she would have a home for life there.

Rita was Katees Guardian Angel.

deb

You are Katee are SO lucky to have her!

 

[room onthebroom]

I just told my husband that peeps talk about the strangest subjects here on BYC.

Can't help but respond.

Perchie, the sugar cube in the mouth got to me.Saddest thing I've heard in a long time.

I've lost a lot of birds to Marek's disease so disposal has always been a bit of a challenge for me. I'd leave them out for the yotes and buzzards but I keep remembering the conservation guy I was talking to one day telling me how he wished the Amish would stop tossing their dead turkeys in the nearest 'ditch' (slang here for ravine) when they die because the wildlife eat them and spread whatever the turkey died of to the wild turkey population. So I try to bury my dead birds which always isn't easy in winter or in summer when the clay soil turns to rock laced concrete. But I don't want a Marek's dead bird to make its way to the dump.

It's worked so far. Usually I pull scrap sheet metal over the burial spot to keep the dogs out of it but every now and then the little devils get ambitious and figure out how to dig one up for an aged chicken feast. Yeah I know. Made me gag too when it happened.

Micro, you always make me laugh, even when we're talking about serious stuff.

 

[microchick]

Not strange at all. Death is part of the circle of life.... We all have ways to say good by... and rituals for burial... And Really it should be shared with humor and poignent stories.

Shows our soft side when we have to make the hard decisions... I know the hell you go through with your birds....

I am thinking that sometimes people dont take into consideration what happens when we take on the responsibility of providing a good life for our birds... and the responsibliity of a good humane death.... what ever the reason.

deb

Great post and yes, I agree with you. Without humor we would all be in tears because as the previous owner of our farm told us, if you have livestock you are gonna have dead stock.

My journey with my birds has been a real trip/learning experience that is for sure. I'm probably an expert now on how to put a chicken down and which calibre bullet works on what size bird.

And yes, I've had to have one horse put down in my life. Couldn't stand to be there but my dad stood in for me and assured her passing was peaceful and quick. I would have buried her if I could. As for dogs I have loved and had cross the rainbow bridge, two are buried in a pet cemetery and the third is buried at the foot of my mom's grave. He was her dog and died three years after she did. I called the cemetery and asked them if they were okay with them burying his ashes on her grave and they told me technically they had to tell me I couldn't do it but, hey, they left at 5 pm sharp and well they didn't much worry about what happened after that. Had to love those people at that moment in time. So I told a garden trowel, Binky's little bag of dust and bone fragments and buried him at the feet of the woman who loved him before she died.

 

[LittleLakePhil]

I'm curious what everybody does with their sick or crippled birds? There are no judgements here, so if you don't like what someone says, please keep it to yourself. I'm just wondering, if you have a bird that dies of illness, or sudden death, or an attack, or other unexpected loss, do you;

*Still send it to freezer camp?
*Send it to the lab?
*Throw them in the trash?
*Make dog food?
*Bury them?
*Burn them?
*Compost them?
*Throw them over the hedge into the neighbors yard?
*Other?

I've been known to bury mine, but I'm always interested to hear what other peoples practices are. ​

All my birds are strictly pets....I will do everything I can to treat them. And nurse then back to health.
And when I lose a bird I bury them..... Luckily I've never lost one in the winter...... Then I just have to throw them away.
But yeah I'm kinda close with my few birds..... So it's kinda a big deal when i lose one.

 

[BYC910]

Well when what you raise is what you eat . You are used to putting animals down . So if they get down bad sick and there is no hope . Chickens if they are injured like a broken leg I give them to anybody at the flea market that wants a free chicken . Bad wounds they get put down . Could call out a vet but that cost money . I bury the horses dogs cats and rabbits they are pets. My kids have had me build more than one pet coffin .I call the rendering plant for the cows. The chickens feed the wildlife. Possom coons and such . I learned at a very young age killing animals is a way of life for farm and rural raised people like me . If a cow broke a leg straight to the slaughter house and in the freezer . I remember @ dan26552 posted he saw bacon when looking at the new litter of piglets Farmer Dan What other people do is their business . I had one customer that buried so many horses around the old cemetery on her farm , when they subdivided the farm. They called one road horse cemetery road .I dug the grave and buried every one of them horses . @room onthebroom figured I better post on the dead chicken tread too.

 

[llombardo]

I have not read all the replies, so I may be the odd one out here, but I had decided when I first got them and found vets that see chickens and ducks that I would have them cremated like all my other pets, because they are my pets.

 

[New2Chicks97]

I would say that I would bury them but the only chicken we have lost so far was to a predator and all that was left was feathers. I am afraid if I buried them that the coyotes would just dig them up anyway. Maybe do a home cremation?

As a kid I buried everything. Unfortunately, my dad's cow dog used to like to dig them up and bring them back. My poor deceased Guinea Pig came back three times before my dad helped me cremate him in the burning barrel.

 

[room onthebroom]

Well when what you raise is what you eat . You are used to putting animals down . So if they get down bad sick and there is no hope . Chickens if they are injured like a broken leg I give them to anybody at the flea market that wants a free chicken . Bad wounds they get put down . Could call out a vet but that cost money . I bury the horses dogs cats and rabbits they are pets. My kids have had me build more than one pet coffin .I call the rendering plant for the cows. The chickens feed the wildlife. Possom coons and such . I learned at a very young age killing animals is a way of life for farm and rural raised people like me . If a cow broke a leg straight to the slaughter house and in the freezer . I remember @ dan26552 posted he saw bacon when looking at the new litter of piglets Farmer Dan What other people do is their business . I had one customer that buried so many horses around the old cemetery on her farm , when they subdivided the farm. They called one road horse cemetery road .I dug the grave and buried every one of them horses . @room onthebroom figured I better post on the dead chicken tread too.

Thanks for stopping by K. You know I always value your perspective!

 

[RWise]

If sick I burn them, if injured beyond getting well they may be dog food or garden fertilizer, deformed birds are eaten,,,