Carcass disposal is a messy subject. Let that horse’s body lie there too long and it will start to bloat, then stink horrifically as it rots. It will attract bugs, scavengers and even your dogs will feed off the meat.

The final responsibility that we all have as animal owners is to ensure that the body of our animal is properly taken care of–both for our personal sanity, and to maintain the environment. Depending on where you live, that scenario will be different. Out west, if a horse dies in a pasture, it might be cleaned up by vultures and coyotes within a matter of days. In the east, it is more common to render, compost or bury your animal in a backyard, cemetery or landfill; while some people choose the more expensive (and less green method) of incineration. In the case of a trailer wreck or other emergency, there may be fewer choices available.

It pays to think about this now – what you want for your horse, and what methods are available to you. Don’t be this guy–waiting for a backhoe for a few days.

Remember, we are not talking about a small problem. There are around 9.2 million horses in the USA right now, which means that over the next 30 years that is roughly 300,000 horses a year that will need to be buried, composted, rendered, or fed to predators (human or otherwise). Assume for the purposes of argument that 0 (zero) more horses will be born in that time, about 3.4% of those horses die each year for a variety of reasons; and that the oldest lives to be 30 years of age. (Yes, all of us know that every year in reality there are many more horses born, which will increase these estimations significantly, and some horses live much longer than 30 years.) Just use this to estimate the problem