proper procedure?

romancemelisa · #1 10/19/04, 03:55 PM

we were at our place in texas over the weekend, and i was just wondering what is the proper procedure to dispose of a dead cow? there
is a pasture across from our place, and saturday morning, while jerry and i were drinking our coffee he noticed some vultures in the feild so he walked out to see what was going on, mother cow had died giving birth, we told our family that live there and they said they would contact the owner, but he wouldn't do anything, that one had died last year and he just left it to rot, right close to my cousin house, but in his feild.

wr · #2 10/19/04, 04:32 PM

Most places have laws regulating the disposal of carcasses, it can be simple or complicated. Some require burial, total disposal by other means and it could be as little as requiring to burn the carcass. The reason for proper disposal is to avoid transfer of disease and the increase in predator/scavenger populations. It's not safe to bring in additional predators and it's not sanitary or pleasant for someone to have to live down wind of a rotting carcass. Check with bylaw enforcement people in the area.

angus_guy · #3 10/19/04, 06:05 PM

Do you not have a "Dead Wagon" A company that you call that will pick up large dead animals?

wr · #4 10/19/04, 07:03 PM

angus_guy, I thought the very same thing but we call it the gut wagon and I they usually don't charge, although since BSE struck in Canada, they sure do now and they are profiting from the heads they turn in for testing.

herefordman · #5 10/21/04, 11:22 PM

The guy is just lazy, theres no reason to leave it out there and attract coyotes and other predators, the least he should do is bury it.
If for no other reason than to just be a good neighbor.
I would be on his doorstep if I had to smell, or look at that every day.

bumpus · #6 10/22/04, 12:13 AM

All States and Countys laws are difference, and varments need to eat too.

Just like you.

If you can get past the stink, they will have it eaten.

Be patient, and it will be gone !

AR Transplant · #7 10/22/04, 01:41 PM

We can't afford to rent a back hoe to dig a hole for our large animals, and we don't have a "dead wagon" that I know of.

My dh and neighbor build a huge brush fire and drag it on top, use a lot of diesel fuel and then burn it. It is usually a half a day affair. But it sure beats leaving it out to stink.

Hope that helps.

wr · #8 10/22/04, 02:56 PM

AR, it's a system that works very well.

Bumpus, the problem with feeding the scavangers is that you tend to lure them in and when they are done with that carcass, they usually look other easy sources of food, like the duck pen and the chicken yard. As far as I'm concerned, they can hunt like they intended rather than dining at my expense. I tend find that with the upswing in coy-dogs and pack dogs that if you lure them in with a carcass, they tend to kill calves and foals.

herefordman · #9 10/26/04, 08:40 PM

Thanks WR for tuning Bumpkiss in.
If Bumpus thinks leaving a rotting carcass around your front door is a good idea, try leaving one of his kids outside with it.
Personally between the coyote packs and the #&$! farrow dog packs all trying to shred my livestock and other animals, the only animals that will rot in my fields are those predators.
I shoot anything that threatens my livestock, unless its a pet I recognize, then the owner gets a call to come and get him before I shoot him.

wr · #10 10/26/04, 08:52 PM

herefordman, it sounds like you and I would make great neighbors, I put my own dog down (a collie that showed great promise as a cattle dog) cause he wouldn't stay and home and was chasing the neighbor's heifers. I've lost one calf in the 15 years I've had cattle and I lost a foal a year ago and both were to scavengers and I have absolutely no reservations about shooting coyotes or dogs and the law is on my side, it's perfectly legal here to shoot trespassing dogs or coyotes. My big fear is living so close to so many acreage people that let their dogs run loose is the coy-dogs, they have no fear or respect for humans or anything else and they don't just take deads or kill when they're hungry.

PezzoNovante · #11 10/28/04, 09:00 PM

Leaving it where it drops is lazy. I lost a calf this spring. We threw a chain around its back legs and dragged it over to a non pasture area with the ATV.

Other than dying from an infectious disease, that's what folks do around here.

My place is littered with old bones from the yesteryears of the previous owners. Critters scattter them around.

There's wasn't a noticable stink from the calf carcass, scavangers made short work of it.

herefordman · #12 10/28/04, 11:04 PM

WR, Our place is between a mountain range and a large creek and is a about three miles from the road, and it amazes me how packs of rogue dogs find us on a regular basis, I suspect some are from people dumping them from town when they're sick of them.
We have two very large dogs who do a good job keeping the coyotes and other predators at bay but sometimes the dog packs are worse.
My dogs know where the property ends so they don't roam onto others land, but then there isn't anything else nearby anyways.
I only shoot at stuff I find in the yard or the three pastures ,I don't bother with anything in the bush surrounding, the coyotes figure this out after a while, they may be noisy buy they stay away from the farm.
There are big cats and bears around, but in reality they don't bother the cattle, and I keep the calves in close pasture or inside while they're babies, otherwise they would be gonners for sure.
Now if only the Border patrol helicopters would stop scaring the cows we would be good !! Haa!! Haa!!

dosthouhavemilk · #13 10/29/04, 02:59 AM

What we do is determined by when and where they die. You can't bury cows easily in the winter. In the spring they aren't easy to bury either (ground is too muddy to call the backhoe out to come in and bury them). It costs $50 just to bury a cow. Most of ours are left out for the vultures and various critters (we just saw our first coyote this year, so they haven't really been an issue). The vultures lived on our farm a couple of years ago when we lost a lot of our cows to toxic mastits. We also compost them. Dad will push them into one of the gulleys caused by a previous owner being destructive with the land and then pushes a bale on top. But mostly they tend to die in areas where it isn't a problem to leave them to nature. I actually collect their skulls after their bodies have decomposed.
We live in hill country and so the smell isn't that big of an issue except for us and we are used to it. We have 40 fence line neighbors and luckily we have two farms that butt up to our property. The only problem is the hunters (who aren't allowed) on our property would probably raise a stink, so we try and cover them up.