This morning we laid Foster Mare to rest. She really needed to go a month ago, but I couldn't get a backhoe. I still can't get a backhoe and she was suffering so for the first time I took a horse to the landfill.
Obviously, you can stop reading now if this subject bothers you, but I think it's important to share.
Very interesting it was, taking a horse to the landfill. There are two in the area that take horses, one an hour one way, the other an hour in the other. The one to the east charged $67, the one to the west $19. Way, way cheaper than getting a hole dug.
My vet lightly sedated her and we loaded her on the trailer. then she sedated her more and I left the trailer and held the rope from the outside. Then she injected the pink stuff and escaped quickly, since some horses flail. Foster mare just slid down the wall and was done. We took off halter, shut up the trailer and went on our way.
I've never actually been to a landfill before. I've seen them of course, but it's unfamiliar to me. Lucky, there were signs saying everyone has to park on the scale and talk to the attendant. I parked on the scale, went in and talked to the attendant. She asked what had been wrong with her (old age) and said she was sorry and I paid the $19. Until I actually went in I just couldn't believe how cheap it was on their webpage and was convinced it would be more. But it wasn't.
Then we pulled the trailer up next to their animal burying hole. Yes, the landfill had one, so it's not like she was buried in trash, though really, trash, dirt, what's the difference? A big tractor came over, the guy was kind and friendly, then he hooked some chains to her feet and very slowly and carefully pulled the body out of the trailer. Then we drove off, he picked her body up with the bucket, put her in the hole and buried her.
It's funny how many people are so against their animals going to the landfill. I honestly may start going this route for everyone, but we'll see how I feel when Banana goes (which better not be for a long time.) It really wasn't traumatic for me, but I've seen quite a few euths now. Could I have done it for Fudge? probably not. But, I didn't have a trailer then either so it wasn't an option.
Unless you really want the grave so you can visit it, does it matter where the body goes? I've decided no, it really doesn't. But that's me, and I've become quite pragmatic about these matters.
This is interesting. I didn't know that you could take a horse to the landfill. Sorry for the loss of your foster mare.
ReplyDeleteI knew you could take them, but hadn't really thought about it until last week when I was sitting here needing to put the poor dear down, Not all landfills take them, so you need to do a bit of research. There seem to be five ways one can deal with a dead horse: burial, landfill, rendering, cremation and just leave the body out for the critters to eat. The last the horse really needs to be shot, not injected with the toxic pink stuff, and one needs to have enough land that you won't piss of the neighbors when things come to eat it. Burial is pretty self-explanatory, but it requires heavy machinery and it's also very much illegal in some places due to water table stuff. Landfill is burial, just not at your house or farm. Rendering it has to go to a rendering plant and they basically heat it so much it melts and the substance at the end is actually used for a lot more things that you think. If one is super into recycling, that's the way it should be dealt with. No rendering plants near here. Cremation is super pricey, like $5000 and then you have a 50 lb box of ashes to deal with. I remember reading on COTH someone who literally got her horse's ashes back in a trash bag in a cardboard box, not the nice little box one tends to get with the small animals.
ReplyDeleteI'm finding it interesting how people are, or aren't, okay with how bodies are disposed. I very much believe that when they're dead their being, the thing that makes them them is gone. Bodies are just shells and since they're gone it really doesn't matter to them what you do, but for some reason it really matters to us. I don't know if all landfills are as awesome as the one I went to, because they were all so kind and nice. I plan to send them a note, thanking them for being that way.
Thanks for this; it's stuff we're going to need to know soon, unfortunately. I do feel better about the options having read this.
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