Is it normal to throw dead livestock out on the ground to rot, instead on burning or burying them?
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Visit the new Dairy Store–open Fridays through Mondays, from 10 a.m.-4 p.m.You’ll be able to taste goat milk, cheeses and ice cream, pick out frozen cuts of meat, wave to the cheesemaker at work and watch the goats doing whatever the goats want to do.
Fairview Farm Goat Dairy
2340 SW Fairview
Dallas, OR 97338
503-623-4744
www.fairviewfarmdairy.com
Question by Mario: Is it normal to throw dead livestock out on the ground to rot, instead on burning or burying them?
We’ve been noticing horrible odors outside for some time now, which smells like something dead. But lately it’s gotten unbearable. It smells so bad outside right now that I don’t even wanna go outside. I can’t open my window for air either, because I don’t want the smell coming into my room.
My brother started snooping around and walked into the neighbor’s spare property/field next door, and he discovered several rotting carcasses of horses, cows and goats (and god knows what else). Also hundreds of other bones from animals that already turned into skeletons. Reminded me of the elephant graveyard from the Lion King (yes, he had it on film and showed me).
He called the police and told them about it, and they came out and told the people to bury them. I sure hope they do it, because this smell is HORRIBLE!
Who in their right mind throws dead animals out on the ground instead of burying them? Or, at least BURN the darn things!? Does anyone else out there do this, or know of someone who does? If so, WHY???? I bet all of our other neighbors are wondering what the heck that terrible smell is.
One more question I wanted to ask. If an animal was diseased, can a human catch the disease just from smelling the odor of the dead carcass?
What’s REALLY bad is that the smell is also coming into our house. I didn’t even want to eat dinner last night because of it.
To Christin…That’s another worry we have with those carcasses. Mosquitos. We have a LOT of mosquitos here in the spring and summer (in fact, I was already bit by one the other day). My brother gets bit all over by them. It freaks me out to think that the mosquitos might have bit the carcasses. *shudders*
Can you help? Leave your own answer in the comments!
8 Responses to Is it normal to throw dead livestock out on the ground to rot, instead on burning or burying them?
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No, it is highly unlikely that you could get sick from inhalation of the smelly air. However, if you were constantly around the dead animals then you could become sick, but again for the situation you described it is highly unlikely.though Animals should be treated with respect and most certainly not left to rot.
Dark
April 18, 2013 at 4:43 pm
I think the better question is : why did he have several carcasses in the first place? WHy did all those animals die?
As for letting them rot- we’ve done that with cattle now and again. We have a big wild dog problem, and used the carcasses as ‘bait’ to attract the dogs so that they could be culled. Keep in mind, though we have 170+ acres of land, and we placed the carcass pretty much right in the middle. No-one could smell the carcass or even SEE it, unless you knew where to look.
You can’t catch disease from the smell, but definitely possible from handling the carcass- or from insects that have fed on the carcass (i.e. mosquitoes).
Hope this gets sorted out soon. Sounds gross!
christine
April 18, 2013 at 5:23 pm
No, not normal. Most normal human beings are aware of how unhygeinic this is. Burial, cremation, rendering are all ways to dispose of the bodies.
I’d be concerned with WHY all these animals are dying?? If you have any livestock, I’d be concerned.
Highly unlikely you can become sick from anything in the air from the rotting flesh, but bugs can carry disease, and of course some bugs fly, so…
.
April 18, 2013 at 5:48 pm
we people are social animal. we know discipline and socialization .. but some time what happens that people go crazy and start to do naughty job …they feel lazy to do full job morally and legally…
Subeg
April 18, 2013 at 6:45 pm
that’s so gross, glad you called the cops.
No that is not normal! If a large animal dies we either buried it or called some service, not sure what it was, but you can look it up online probably
other animals or you can get diseases from the dead body but maybe not from smelling it, although it is still gross!
Gone Country Girl
April 18, 2013 at 7:03 pm
I work on a large dairy farm (1,000 cows) and occasionally we have animals die (it’s part of life we do all we can for them but some just don’t make it). We have a compost pile where we take the carcass and then bury them with silage (the acids in the silage quickly take care of the carcass) and there is no smell involved since it is covered up. It is not normal to leave the bodies out in the open and it is disgusting to have that smell coming in your house. That “farmer” should be ashamed.
EDIT: By silage I mean the waste that we take from the top and sides. There is always waste when you have silage pits. We deface the pit every day to make sure it is fresh and all the top layer goes to the compost pile. We are very careful to make sure no moldy feed goes to the cows so there is waste.
Lilly
April 18, 2013 at 8:00 pm
Lilly, Dead animals would not be put in S, because that is cattle feed. They might bury one in the manure pile but not put it in a food sorce for the animals.
When we were on the big ranches we would drag dead animals way out in the brush or the lavas and leave them. It is very expensive to hire a back hoe to bury them.
Maybe he is letting people butcher animals there and that is what is left. We had a fellow in our area that sold horses on the hoof to mostly the Tongans who love horse meat, they would go to his place and butcher them in his pasture and leave what they did not want to take.
Lilian
April 18, 2013 at 8:09 pm
Coming out of winter, the ground may have been too hard to bury animals to begin with and now they just don’t want to deal with it. I do agree though that it is suspicious that they have so many dead animals laying around, but you have to cut people some slack sometimes. It may have been to costly or impractical to bury them in winter (at least where I live there’s no chance of breaking the ground with anything but a backhoe). We actually had a cow die during the winter and drug it out with the tractor to the part of the pasture farthest away from people and covered it with a tarp. The tarp actually helps keep most of the smell from escaping.
darkmoon13
April 18, 2013 at 8:25 pm