What do you do with.....

[Ger-annie-um]

a dead chook. Maybe I'm soft but putting it in the bin seems hard - BUT there are only so many that can be buried in the garden. What with a couple of moggy graves and now 2 chook graves we are in danger of not being able to have a veg plot because daughter insists every animal has a 'proper' send off. Not going to mention the small animal resting places of which there were 5 before will called a halt to goldfish and hamsters!

So what do you do

[mothhawk]

Well, call me callous but I always recycled any dead chook deep in the middle of the compost heap.

(They disappear very fast, bones and all).

[Glutton4...]

A corpse under the compost pile is a fabulous way of getting the pile 'going' but not everyone likes to do it.

My old neighbour used to chuck his chook corpses over the hedge into the field behind, for whatever animal was out there and hungry in the night.

Another friend takes hers to the stables, and bungs 'em on the muck heap or the bonfire. Others put them in the rubbish bin.

[Nicos]

We usually wrap up ours and pop them in the bin for their final journey around the beautiful country lanes courtesy of the French refuse company.

Any other small dead mammal tends to be put on top of a pile of rotting weeds/ brambles etc for the local raptors to help themselves to.

We've only ever buried one chook...Betty ' Queen of Chooks'...she was our best mommy for years and on one occasion even protected her young against a peacock!!
Hats off to her ...she very much deserved a special place under the pear tree.
Always sad to see them go isn't it??

[Lisasbolt]

Sorry maybe i am a bit mean but they are gone now a body is just a body, so either in the bin or in the septic tank. I used to bury everything but now i just put them in the bin.

[Neilbaldwyn]

We opted for a funeral pyre for the last one, got the incinerator bin going and popped her in. Ashes are much easier to distribute than bodies.

[veggiechicken]

In the bin!
Don't like burying anything in the garden as I hate the thought of disturbing a body

[Gillykat]

When we used to foster the old and terminally ill cats we buried them in a small copse just up the road from us which we now refer to as Rainbow Wood. It's away from he main dog walking areas, no kids play up there and there's no shooting either - it's just a lovely peaceful place full of wild flowers and next door to a plant nursery. Just added them up in my head and there's ten much-missed babies up there now

If I had chickens and they died from nothing infectious I think I would take them up Rainbow Wood too. Otherwise I'd probably take them somewhere off the beaten track and leave them for the foxes or badgers or buzzards etc - no point in a meal going to waste to help a wild animal

[Nicos]

This is from another poultry site..I've included it because what they say is very interesting...

https://poultrykeeper.com/general-ch...when-they-die/

[Ger-annie-um]

Thanks all. I think I'll go with Gillykat's way. We live in the middle of a forest so wandering down the road and finding a spot away from from it all would work for me. If OH wants to bin them then he's going to have to do it, it just seems such an ungrateful thing to do after the chooks have been so giving - not just of their eggs but making me smile every time I go to the chook house.