How Do You Dispose of a Dead Chicken?

[MrsAuberry00]

Luckily, and fingers crossed, I don't have this problem YET. But I have the worst luck possible and this type of thing always happens when my husband is out of town, (like the TWO different occasions he was out of town and I had to get a snake out of our basement. Or when our air conditioner quit working, or the time our puppy died. Like I said...worst luck ever.) After yesterday's soft shelled egg, which SHOULDN'T be anything to worry about, and my husband being out of town, I of course started worrying about what to do if one of our chickens died.

How do you dispose of a chicken that has died?

 

[PatrickRoo]

Lol. A soft shelled egg can definitely be something to worry about. Your hen layed a soft shelled egg either because of age, feed, or even an illness.

I can help you with the soft shelled egg problem, so that your chicken has lower risks of dying. Only if you want me to.

By the way, we have always buried our chickens.

 

[tomphot]

I have had 1 chicken die - I took it to the Georgia Poultry Lab https://www.gapoultrylab.org/
They performed a necropsy at no charge to determine cause of death.

 

[Mrs. K]

One can bury them, or even wrap them and place them in the garbage. You choice.

Soft shelled eggs are a natural glitch in the system, for what ever reason, 99% of them cure themselves. Although you may have one for several days up to two weeks, when all of a sudden, they are normal again.

Mrs K

 

[Lazy Farmer]

Luckily, and fingers crossed, I don't have this problem YET. But I have the worst luck possible and this type of thing always happens when my husband is out of town, (like the TWO different occasions he was out of town and I had to get a snake out of our basement. Or when our air conditioner quit working, or the time our puppy died. Like I said...worst luck ever.) After yesterday's soft shelled egg, which SHOULDN'T be anything to worry about, and my husband being out of town, I of course started worrying about what to do if one of our chickens died.

How do you dispose of a chicken that has died?

I bury them under my flowering bushes. eventually they are one with the dirt and become fertilizer. there will be a day soon enough when you have beautiful flowers and enjoy them, and be glad you didnt just put the chick in the trash can, but brought new life to your flowers..

 

[azygous]

Your question is a very pragmatic one. I commend you for thinking ahead so you'll be prepared and not caught flat-footed, as they say.

My chickens mean a lot to me. They've always been more pets than livestock. I began a sweet little chicken cemetery under a big pine overlooking the canyon below. I even gave them little grave stones with their names on them. I visited the site occasionally and thought about my little former friends.

Then a bear discovered the little graves and dug them up. That desecration wasn't all, though. It gave the bear a taste for my live chickens and I had an entire summer of bear encounters, some very close to being dangerous.

Once I put two and two together and figured out the connection between my pet cemetery and the bear attacks, I stopped burying my expired chickens. Instead, I wrap them reverently in paper and string and ceremoniously deposit them in the community dumpsters.

What happens once they are safely transported to the county landfill doesn't affect me or my live chickens.

 

[keesmom]

Luckily, and fingers crossed, I don't have this problem YET. But I have the worst luck possible and this type of thing always happens when my husband is out of town, (like the TWO different occasions he was out of town and I had to get a snake out of our basement. Or when our air conditioner quit working, or the time our puppy died. Like I said...worst luck ever.)

Can I ever sympathize with you! My husband went off on a 2 month trip for work. The day he left my cellphone died. Got a new one that afternoon only to have it destroyed the next day when a dog went after me (along with holes in my hand and thigh). The fridge died. The water heater died and started leaking. The sliding doors in my minivan stopped working. Took our truck instead and got a flat (nail in the tire). Couldn't get the tire off so I had to bring it in where they spent 45 minutes with a sledgehammer pounding it off. And that's just what I remember off the top of my head.

So I completely understand why you feel the way you do. For us, we bury our deceased. We cover the remains underground with rocks to try to prevent them from being dug up again.

 

[BantyChooks]

I toss mine off a cliff on my property. Digging holes in the summer takes a good half hour with a pickaxe thanks to all the rocks, and the other half the year the ground is too frozen to dig at all.

 

[andreanar]

I do the dumpster burial. Especially since the chicken died from who knows what and I didn't want any other animal digging it up and getting sick.

 

[MrsAuberry00]

Lol. A soft shelled egg can definitely be something to worry about. Your hen layed a soft shelled egg either because of age, feed, or even an illness.

I can help you with the soft shelled egg problem, so that your chicken has lower risks of dying. Only if you want me to.

By the way, we have always buried our chickens.

Thanks. I believe it might have been from my new layer as just the day before one of my hen's eggs had some extra calcium bumps on it, and all other eggs have been normal. I've read a soft shelled egg can be attributed to new layer, heat, not enough calcium, etc.