Burying dead animals for composting and enrichment of the soil.

What's going on! I wanna find out if we could bury dead creatures into the soil for enrichment and restoration of health. How could we approach dead animals safely without being sick? How deep should we bury them without other creatures smelling them and feasting on them? Please shoot me back if y'all need me. Take care!

You can bury them but I certainly wouldn't want to for a variety of reasons. Nutrients all get cycled back into the earth in one way or another if left be.

Composting is what we do for deadstock (dead livestock) and I would recommend.  https://familyfarmlivestock.com/composting-the-best-way-to-dispose-of-dead-stock/

I've tried burying skulls to let the soil critters clean them but something came and dug them up. I didn't want to dig a huge, deep-enough hole, bury, mark or remember where it was, and dig again in several months to retrieve it. Next time I would (not having a lake to submerge it in) put it on a post or something for scavengers and UV to clean instead. Work smart, not hard.

I've never done this with something larger than a cat/rabbit/opossum, but I just dig a hole in the compost pile, put the critter in the bottom, and fill the hole. If a bear or raccoon wants to dig them up, then I figure they're turning my compost for me and hopefully taking a dump while there. If I find bones in the compost too big to add to a garden bed, I either rebury it in the next pile like I do with eggshells and coconut husks or toss it to the tree-line.

What's happening! I'm from an urban area and looking for ways to to enrich my soil without drawing rats or other creatures. Should they be buried deep in our compost bins or containers without creatures seeing them or smelling them? How could bones be decomposed quickly after they been laid in the compost areas?

I have composted small deadstock successfully a few times.

You should consider deadstock to be a 'green' that needs a lot of carbon to properly balance out. I've done a Ruth Stout compost in place over winter in raised beds for very small deadstock (squirrel size) and intentional compost pile for things around the size of a racoon. Essentially I'd make a pad of carbon material, place the deadstock on said carbon material, add even more carbon material on top and then flip my existing compost pile on top of all of that to mingle for a while.

Anything of bigger size I would probably want to look towards proper deadstock composting facilities unless I could figure out how to make a windrow myself but that is a lot of work in my opinion.

Timothy Norton wrote:You should consider deadstock to be a 'green' that needs a lot of carbon to properly balance out... Essentially I'd make a pad of carbon material, place the deadstock on said carbon material, add even more carbon material on top and then flip my existing compost pile on top of all of that to mingle for a while.

Totally this! When I have a dead chicken, (yes, it happens) I take a paper feed sack, put the bird in along with a bunch of fine sawdust, if I have it, I add some biochar (I make my own, but it can be purchased), then roll the sack up like a tootsie roll and bury it in the compost. So not just "lots of carbon" but also a variety of carbons.

In the summer, if flies have laid eggs on the corpse, the maggots will demolish all the soft material very quickly. They will add frass* to the compost in the process, but will fly away with much of the nutrient. I'm OK with that, as my ducks are quite good at catching flies, so the circle continues...

If there are a few bones left, I put them at the edges of my beds under some soil. If I find a lot, I dry them and burn them in the wood stove.

If buried too deeply, unless there are roots accessing the corpse, you might be surprised how long is takes to decompose. Planting a fish under a new tree or under some crops was a European practice with a long history.


* frass is the technical name for insect poop

An old idea that I have heard many times is to plant fish in your garden.

We have too many predator to be able to bury dead animals to enrich the soil unless we plant them six feet under...

We've been "burying" animals in the compost pile for years. It works beautifully. Jay's instructions are pretty close to my method. We have to trap brushtail possums, hedgehogs, and rats here, so they all go on the heap. So do deceased chickens and ducks, unless they are pets, in which case they get a proper burial under a tree. I figure that is still a beneficial place for the decomposition to take place, since the tree roots will participate in the process and good things happen in good soil.

The local council recently approved an area for natural burials that's at the domain on the edge of the village. Each interment will have a tree planted on top and over time a "forest of remembrance" will be the result.

I just had a chicken die so I opened the totes where I had composted the last two.
No smell, just rich compost.
The material inside had collect to much moisture to sieve, so I did retrieve many of the bones, sorting through the grave mold by hand.

I've done this before and a bucket seems to drain better.
I pack the newly dead in finished compost and that seems to break them down within a years time.

William reminds me that the bones don't break down in the compost. I get them back (usually a year down the road) when I sieve the finished product for putting on the garden or into potting mix, and then they go through the fire so that they're easy to crumble.

We bury them in the woodchip pile. The compost down fast.

If you have a thriving colony and it's the right season, black soldier flies are also an excellent option.  They will break down a small to medium sized critter to bones in a matter of a few days, and produce valuable feed in the process.  If you are remote enough that odor isn't an issue, and have a fairly large flock, dead things can sometimes simply be thrown to the chickens.  Those little dinosaurs can be as effective as buzzards, and if any maggots manage to grow, they're just feed as well.  A carcass can be softened, and any fears of diseases allayed, by boiling it up in a big pot over a campfire.  Years ago at the commune I lived at we did this with roadkill on a frequent basis, since we were boiling other things like soybeans and potatoes on a regular basis.

Occasionally have buried small animals in the garden. A foot or so down. No signs that anything dug them up. We have dogs, racoons and opossums that could have dug them up, but no signs. Never have found any bones when digging up the garden later. Completely gone!

Blake, I agree with some other posters here, I have no problem with using critters to help build the soil.  However, speaking  from lessons learned (mostly the hard way )  Please bury said critter really, really deep into your compost pile.
I once had to expose a silly groundhog's little brain to the light of day for the crime of looking at my garden as a free lunch program, being later in the summer and as I had not yet sown any cover crop on the empty beds, I tried a crude chop and drop method of about eight inches in depth.  Fast forward about a week, coming home late one day we were greeted with the most unpleasant odor.  I knew at once what it was and said to my ex wife #2, go sniff your dogs (beagles. at that time) to see which one dug up the dead groundhog!
I removed the somewhat smelly critter to the "buzzard" rock in the pasture, the problem was quickly taken care of!

Moral of this story, bury said critter deep!

Peace

I put the heads of deer I harvest for food each year in my raised beds.  I have done this with three thus far, over three years. I wrap the antlers in aluminum foil to preserve them from rodent teeth, make sure they have a good 12 inches of earth on top, then plant annuals (lettuces, brassicas, etc). The beds always seem to do great - at the least, they do not noticeably suffer.  I’ve never had an issue with canines or others digging them up, and took no extra care beyond the placement in tall-ish (four feet off the ground) raised beds. I suspect I’ve simply been lucky in that regard - as we do have skunks, raccoons, coyotes, bears and a dog with a penchant for stinky things. The following year during spring prep I dig them up, and they are cleaned up and ready for their next purpose. So far it works a treat, and I think of those greens as real 'brain' food. Happy Halloween! 🎃
Edited to add - I leave them in the beds for a full year's cycle before digging back up

Should we keep animal bones clean to prevent other critters such as rats from smelling them to think that it's food? How deep should we bury the bones for them to be decomposed? Could fur and feathers also be decomposed to make rich soil?