Getting to the bones

I thought about mentioning rabies and several other diseases but why freak people out. Rabbits can also carry rabbis and in Missouri are know to carry tularemia.


By burying it the flesh rots and the worms/bugs eat to remove the flesh. Some viruses /bacteria would be inactivated, killed by being in the soil for 6 months. Putting it in the sun for several days to bake in the UV radiation from the sun and dry kills or again at least inactivates viruses.

Handling the bones with gloves and washing hands after insures you do not get rabies or any other disease.

I have processed/shipped over 30 rabies positive animals and have yet to get rabies. I would estimate I have submitted well over 150 specimens for testing . Most were dead but some I had to put down prior to colleting the brain and shipping it.

If the animal is dead I just use gloves and wash hands. If alive then it is goggles, mask, disposable cloth jump suit or change and wash immediately after harvesting the brain.

Once the flesh, blood, mucus and other fluids are off the bones, they have aged and dried there is no danger of disease transmission.

I assumed the OP would use gloves or a shovel to move the carcass prior to burial.

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Health Care is vital to all of us some of the time but Public Health is vital to all of us all of the time. C. Everett Koop US Surgean General 1981-1989.

Kinda funny.. or not, but since we've gotten our farm I've become a bone collector of sorts.. We've been finding skulls and partial skeletons around the place and I've been putting them all in one place on the root cellar near the back door... So far I've had part of a snake, a small deer skull, a couple turtle shells and bones, and the backbone and ribs from a coon... Even my wife has been adding bones to the pile..

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Never let your fear decide your fate!
Kein Mitleid für die Mehrheit

If you bury it, you may dig it up only to find most of it has simply vanished (broken down) bones and all. Make a hardware cloth cover, or basket for it and leave it out , exposed on the ground. It will be nothing but fur and bones in a couple of weeks. That way y'all can watch the decomposition too, and note all the little critters that help it along its merry journey.

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Vicker
If you're born to hang, you'll never drown.

My dd loves bones and as part of her homeschooling, she has a 'museum'. She has rocks, bones, habitat settings and all sorts of stuff in there. She has to learn a little about everything she wants to put in there and make a little write up to put with it. Then she sets it up, actually kinda like a museum. She has a blast with it and learns all sorts of stuff. She also loves showing it off.

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Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
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My attempt at a blog. Hopefully entertaining and useful.
http://senselesslyrandom.blogspot.com/

Around here, all you have to do is take a short walk through the woods and you're subject to run up on a deer carcass. Especially if you walk in the woods near the main road.

I will be the oddball out here and say that I don't see an issue with this. We live on quite a bit of acreage and have 3 big dogs on the place who frequently bring us their critter kills just to let us know they are doing their job. There is almost always dead stuff in the yard somewhere - sometimes just bones, sometimes a little meat or feathers still attached. If it is time to mow the lawn we toss it over the fence, otherwise we leave it be and let them have their fun. If we touch one, we just go wash our hands really well.

Yes dead animals are unsanitary; but so is working with manure, wiping a child's butt, or handling raw meat :-) I think as long as you (and they) use some common sense it won't be a problem. For example, I would not recommend letting them gnaw on the bones, but I think that is pretty obvious.

If you want to get real serious about it you can have them wear rubber gloves to touch it. Just take normal precautions and explain to them why you are doing that so if they ever stumble across another carcass they know how to safely handle it.

Wild dead animals, as well as domestic stock, produce a wealth of anatomy knowledge. We home school, and my kids have many science lessons throughout the year, on various animals. They compare teeth, eyes, tongues, fur, feet, tails, muscle structure, bone structure. If we open it up, we study the heart lungs, look at the stomach contents, find the kidneys. They love it, and I love it more.

Beavers, badgers, coyotes, moose, elk, bear, chickens, muskrats, foxes, mink, weasels, skunks, geese, fish... There is only one way to learn effectively, IMO how each of these animals work. IMO, the best info does not come from the pages of a book, but from a hands on examination.

I tried to explain to someone once for example, that the beaver has a split toenail on the back feet, that they use exclusively for grooming. They could not imagine this was true, and they were adults.

I shot a beaver, and showed my kids that split toe. They thought it was incredibly amazing!

IMO, dead animals are an incredible source of information and learning for kids.

While I suppose it is possible for a coon to be " stuck in the mud" I would be extremely skeptical there was not something wrong with that animal. I think mud soft and deep enough to mire down a coon would do the same to a dog. Probably the safest thing you could do with the carcass is carefuly burn it or bury it deeply. Please be careful.

Not an in the house project.

LOL.. .nope.. good for a shed or detached garage.

__________________
Never let your fear decide your fate!
Kein Mitleid für die Mehrheit

There has been some good information posted about Dermestid beetles and their care on another board I visit, don't know if any of it was archived or not. Will look tonight if I remember.

You have a great opportunity to teach the youngsters about the food chain. leave the carcass in the yard so they can watch the various other critters dispose of it.

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"Nothing so needs reforming as other peoples habits." Mark Twain

This bears repeating. I would be mighty suspicious about a wilderness-wise, cunning and tough fighting animal like a raccoon getting stuck in any mud unless it was already dying from something deadly and too weak to get out of the mud.

This is the second recent account of the OP's about an unusual circumstance involving a wild animal exhibiting bizarre behaviour, the last being that staggering coyote that was sick and had to be shot.

Pretty Paisley, has it not sunk in with you yet that there is some kind of deadly disease effecting wild animals in your neighbourhood? I think you need to find out more about what is making these wild animals sick before you go exposing your children to it and risking their own health.

Ooooh.....good thinking. It hadn't occured to me - until you mentioned it. Thank you Paumon.

I wasn't home when the raccoon issue went down. I was at work ... so I heard about it second hand from my SO. I will get rid of the raccoon - no one has touched it except with a shovel to put it in a bucket until I figured out what we could do with it (learn from it). I think I'll skip this one -

So should I contact someone with the county about this? Take the raccoon to them? It's a small county - it's not like we have extra resources but if there is something going around I am sure they would like to know. I know I would like to know - sooner rather than later.

I would DIE if those things got loose in my house !!!

Well.. at least if you did, there'd be something to clean up the mess

__________________
Never let your fear decide your fate!
Kein Mitleid für die Mehrheit

Alright...that was funny.

Any active ant piles on your place. set the carcus on it and they'll have it cleaned in a couple of days. Used to do that as a kid so I could see the bones.

WWW

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If the grass looks greener it is probably over the septic tank. - troy n sarah tx

Our existance here is soley for the expoitation of CMG

Well coming from someone that has killed, skinned and ate thousands of Coons.

I would bury it, flesh eating Beetles will find it, eat all, sift through the dirt get all the bones, wash them up, if you want to whiten use peroxide not bleach.

You might check with Taxidermist in the area, they have Beatles that will clean up small animals. See if they might have a Small Animal they would do for you or if you could bring one in. See what they will charge.

Hardest part reconstructing is the Neck and Spine.

big rockpile

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I would call animal control and see what they have to say. Especially since there was the coyote incident as well. Both species are common rabies vectors.
Here is rabies info for your state.

http://epi.publichealth.nc.gov/cd/rabies/control.html