What to do with DOA kids?

I bet it does! How hard is it to tan the leather at home? Do you need to use nasty chemicals? I'm sure there is a thread somewhere about tanning...

Many years ago I had an older Arab mare who went from being pig fat to a bag of bones after foaling. Calls to my vet were met with "are you giving her enough hay/grain/de-worm her/etc. but they were not getting it when I was telling them how rapidly she went down hill.

When the foal was about 3 weeks old I hauled the both of them to the clinic (1 hour and 15 minutes away) and the vet took one look at the mare and was horrified. I said "I have been TRYING to tell you this!". Anyway it was determined that she has such a severe heart murmur that it was a wonder she was still alive. We made plans to try to keep her around just a bit longer for the sake of the foal.

I made an appointment a few weeks later for the vet to come out to put her down. That day one of my chickens had been hit by a car and I tossed it in the hole that had been dug to put the mare in. When the vet arrived we lead the mare down to the hole. The vet glanced down and saw the chicken and looked puzzled for a moment and said "an offering to the Gods?". In spite of the serious and sad nature of what we were about to do we both broke into laughter at that question. I did suggest that this is how it would look to some scientist a thousand years from now no doubt.

I compost my dead ones. I couldn't bring myself to butcher a kid or a lamb and eat it and it isn't worth the effort in terms of size in my mind anyway.

We bury all our dead animals by the creek - even buried our old 300# buck down there. It took a front loader to dig the hole, but he's nice and deep. I think we have the best fertilized ground down by the creek.

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"I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw some things back..." Maya Angelou

We compost, but now that it's been mentioned, it's not a bad idea to feed the carcasses to the dogs. We feed them dead rabbit kits, so why not the goat kids?

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Je ne suis pas Alice

http://homesteadingfamilies.proboards.com/

You can use nasty chemicals, but you don't have to. You can use egg whites or brain to tan it. I would think that preemies and stillborns would make good skins though?
http://www.braintanbuckskin.com/

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I'm an environmentalist, left wing, Ron Paul loving Prius driver with a farm. If you have a problem with that, kindly go take a leap.