It was my job to bury the dead critters, and the graveyard of choice was some easy digging soil behind the barn. There is a valuable lesson growing up on the farm that animals die. Chickens, cats, dogs, calves, and occasionally cows. They wouldn’t all die of natural causes either. Some cats died because their error in instinct caused them to get run over or stepped on by a cow. Chickens would die a planned death at the hands of an ax when it was time to butcher them for freezing or eating.
I didn’t bury everything that died. We would call the rendering plant truck to come pick up cows as they were too big to bury and even in death, they had value. I also knew dead cows would be converted to mink food, back in the days when mink ranches were common, and mink coats and fur accessories were acceptable attire.
The truck would back up and drop the tailgate to retrieve a cow, converting it into a loading ramp. The driver would pull a cable and connect it to a leg. Power up the wrench, and the carcass would unceremoniously be pulled up the ramp into the back of the truck bed. Sometimes there were other animals on the back that were forced to make room, and I do mean forced. It was tragic to see a cow, worth $350 to $450, producing milk for the creamery, adding to the weekly milk check, be suddenly be reduced worth $10 for mink food. I was always fascinated to see if there was another cow on the back of the truck, and I would wonder what it died from. Natural or man-made accident. A young farm boy equivalent of rubber-necking at a car accident.
I remember one cow that fell into the manger behind the barn and flat onto it’s back, it’s feet sticking up. More exactly, and more crude, the expression goes “teats up.” Unable to turn or rotate in place, it died a slow suffocating death. It was already cold when I found it. The only way to remove the cow was to remove all the manger boards so it could be dragged out. $10 is what I remember.
Smaller animals from calves on down were easier buried, and the graveyard of choice was behind the barn. I apparently wasn’t the only one who use to bury animals back behind the barn as I remember digging holes and coming across animal bones of previous victims. At least I think and hope they were animal bones. What do I look like to you, a Forensic Scientist? Calves had to be buried at last 3 feet down, to keep other critters, including the family dog, from digging it up. A possible source of the deadly Anthrax bacteria, one needed to get those disease ridden carcasses buried into the ground and as deep as practically possible.
Some day in the distant future, probably when the barn and silo are long gone, someone, to their horror, will be digging in the ground and discover a mass burial ground. I can imagine the Anthropologist being called in and giggle with excitement on their find. They will apply for all their grants to continue researching the “discovery of the century.” They will hire their unemployed drinking friends and other college professors to milk the site (pun intended ) for all it is worth. Makes me wish I had buried some of the animals with little metal tags that said “It’s a cat that was just a little slow” or “Here lies Brownie, who developed a taste for chicken.”
Dead cats and kittens were easy, along with other small animals. Some of the dead cats or kittens were simply tossed into the manure spreader and were eventually ‘deposited’ somewhere into the field with the rest of the fertilizer.
Chickens were another matter. Our hen house was next to the garage, and occasionally we would find a dead chicken when going out to collect eggs. How we disposed of the chicken depended on the time of the year. In the summer, they were quickly buried, but in the winter, with the Wisconsin ground frozen hard, usually covered with snow, there was no way to dig into the tundra. So, under the “out of sight – out of mind” policy, I would throw them up on the slopped roof of the hen house until the weather was better and the digging was easier. White chickens, snow on the roof, who would know. As spring approached as the snow melted off the roof, and the henhouse didn’t quite smell right anymore, that was the clue to get the ladder and throw the chickens down for proper burial.
I remember one spring Mom had driven the river road located to the south of the farm. Much to her disgust and embarrassment and with eyes like a hawk, she recognized dead chickens on the roof from the river road, a good half mile away. I am not sure how or why she knew they were dead chickens, but she strongly expressed her displeasure when she got home. It must have been all the motionless white dots in contrast with the black tar paper roof. I got up on the roof and got rid of the dead chickens. She was right as they were up on the roof a little to long. Mom was happier after that.
It was years later as an adult that I finally learned the fate of the two horses my Dad had that were used to work the land. The horses were gone before I was born, but I use to see the stable where they were kept in the barn and harnesses and horseshoes were not uncommon to find around the building. The horses had served their purpose plowing and working the land, but they were getting on in years. Tractors were just easier and a whole lot more powerful. Leo, as a young boy told me he remembers well when the horses were loaded up on a trailer and hauled off. He would have been around eight. Ralph broke the news to me one day that he recalled the horses were sold to a fox farm outside of Berlin. I was glad I didn’t get to know the houses.
That’s life on a dairy farm.