Misfitmorgan's Journal - That Summer Dust

[Baymule]

I am so sorry that you lost your Hereford girl.

a rather delicate question; when everything is so frozen, what do you do with the body of a dead animal?

It doesn't sound good for the litter either. That gives me a sinking feeling in my gut, can just imagine what you feel like.

 

[Latestarter]

SO sorry MM... that's a terrible loss. I hope the litter makes it with all that you're trying to do to help save it.

 

[misfitmorgan]

I am so sorry that you lost your Hereford girl.

a rather delicate question; when everything is so frozen, what do you do with the body of a dead animal?

It doesn't sound good for the litter either. That gives me a sinking feeling in my gut, can just imagine what you feel like.

Well Bay that is possibly a taboo question for most but a pretty logical question to me. It honestly depends on the dead animal, size, pet vs livestock.

Large livestock is taken to the back of the property and basically given to nature, we have a lot of coyotes, foxes, birds, etc that benefit. By spring when everything finally thaws there usually isnt much of anything left, maybe a few bones that were not taken off yet.

Smaller livestock are "buried" in the burn pile, so poultry or baby/very young livestock. It may sound bad to some but it is the safest way to take care of small dead livestock that ensure you don't later find tiny body parts laying around which I would find horrifying.

As far as pets....I will get to that in my next post.

 

[misfitmorgan]

The weekend was horrible for us. Lots of bad and a tiny bit of good.

First off we lost Fate yesterday. She has seemed to struggle since her mother was separated from her, i held hope she just needed longer to adjust and putting the new girls with her would help. She did walk around with them some but mostly stayed on her own. We wormed and drenched all the kids/young goats but it didnt seem to make much difference to Fate. Sunday DH moved Fate, Latte, and Espresso into the barn because they were showing signs of severe cold stress and depression. They were put in their own pen with a hay feeder full of hay, grain and plenty of water. All of them were hunched up from the cold but everyone went immediately to the grain and ate it then the hay. When DH Left the barn about 30 minutes later he said they seems to be thawing out and acting fine, standing more normal, etc. Yesterday DH and our friend Tommy went out to do chores and found Fate dead, Latte and Espresso seemed fine.

In other news Greg the new Ram that came with the mutts was laying Dead in the pasture Sunday morning. Other then being an older ram we have no idea why. He had good weight and no obvious signed of why he died.

I will say it was extremely cold here, Saturday night it was -27F with windchill, Sunday night it was -15F with windchill. Maybe thats the cause, I really don't know. We also lost 2 chickens to the cold, seems they decided to roost in a evergreen tree outside instead of in the 2 story and the cold was to much for them.

Sunday we also lost Lucas. Lucas was our elderly weiner dog. DH picked him out at 3 days old and took him home at 6 weeks old, he has been with that dog constantly from that day on. That 12lb weiner dog was the best hunting dog DH ever owned and his constant companion for almost 14yrs. DH is taking it very hard, I don't blame him. I loved that little dog too

To finish answering Bay, Lucas was "buried" on a funeral pyre. Yes DH made a tiny pyre like the vikings used to, wrapped Lucas in a white tea towel and set the works on fire. Pets get extra care because they are pets, not that they are more loved just that they are more connected to us. My little old dog who we lost in the summer was buried at the head of two trails on our property because she loved to explore and wander off. Rose is buried in the Orchard under the Apple tree she liked to lay under in the summer. Rocky is also buried in the Orchard because it seems like a peaceful spot for him.

It seems like this house is bent on getting rid of our dogs. I know that's insane but i've never in my life lost so many dogs in such a short period of time. We lost Rocky to a seizure, We lost Rose and Girly girl to some sort of poison/toxin, now we have lost Lucas as well. Stella was re-homed to a friend and Boss went back to my sister-in-law.

The slightly good news. No babies yet. We have 2.5 weeks of miserable below freezing for the most part, then we should be in the clear as far as lambs/kids/piglets dying at birth from cold. I doubt the hereford will make it that long but i'm hoping, if she does it's still going to be tough going for the piglets.

Also the heater in my car broke, got a new resistor and is still not working right.

 

[Wehner Homestead]

I thought I’d answer with what we do here too. Pets (dogs/cats,) chickens, and baby livestock are placed in plastic feed sacks and put on a heavy duty shelf out of reach of the dogs to be buried with the thaw. Whenever that may be. Depending on the year, we have several bodies to dispose of at a time and other times we have none.

Large carcasses...we bury dead calves, goats of all sizes here. Like when the bull died, we call the “dead wagon.” They are turned into fertilizer. Saves us from digging a hole that large no matter the weather.

 

[Wehner Homestead]

@misfitmorgan I’m so sorry! We lost so much last year! It was just one loss after another. It seemed like the hits just kept coming.

 

[misfitmorgan]

@misfitmorgan I’m so sorry! We lost so much last year! It was just one loss after another. It seemed like the hits just kept coming.

The past 2 yrs are just 1 good thing 5 bad things..over and over. We get over one thing and then wham here is the next, this weekend we didnt even have time to breath. Even our foster daughter was like omg there are dead animals all over. Greg the sheep was waiting outside of the pasture fence to be taken out back(he has to much wool to burn), the two chickens were laying in front of the barn waiting to go to the burn pile, and lucas was wrapped in a blanket on our loveseat waiting for his pyre. Poor kid.

Hopefully things get better for all of us and we have a good year ahead. 2019 isnt the best so far.

 

[greybeard]

Large livestock is taken to the back of the property and basically given to nature, we have a lot of coyotes, foxes, birds, etc that benefit. By spring when everything finally thaws there usually isnt much of anything left, maybe a few bones that were not taken off yet.

Smaller livestock are "buried" in the burn pile, so poultry or baby/very young livestock. It may sound bad to some but it is the safest way to take care of small dead livestock that ensure you don't later find tiny body parts laying around which I would find horrifyin

Pretty much how it is done here as well. Even tho we don't have a frozen tundra type winter climate, the indigenous critters seem to do a good job of cleaning everything up and rather quickly too.

Sometimes I'll burn one if I have reason to believe a communicable disease may have been present but usually not.

 

[Latestarter]

Really sorry for all your recent losses MM... Hopefully when all the new babies start arriving it will help offset and give you something nice to concentrate on.

 

[promiseacres]