The thread title pretty much says it all. A little background…
We were away on vacation the week before last. At some point during that time, a gray squirrel departed this mortal coil in our back yard. I noticed it about 9 days ago, at which point it looked (and smelled) like it hadn’t been there long. Since it was in a rather nasty state, and I didn’t have any reason to care much, I just decided to let nature take its course.
I haven’t been back there since, but I’ll probably have to mow the lawn this weekend. Assuming it’s still there, what can I expect to see at about day 13 or so? Assuming I have to move it away, will it still stink, or will most of the biomass have been carried off or consumed? What if I just mowed it over with the lawn tractor?
Other data points: It’s been hot and/or pretty humid here much of the time, with some rain, and will be hot and humid for at least the next few days. We have a pretty typical suburban yard, with mature trees, lots of birds, and presumably the occasional racoon and assorted rodents. My wife and I are the only people that would be back there on a regular basis.
You’ll probably find some remaining bits of fur and bone, but not much more. Crows and flies and other critters will probably have lunched heartily on it. If you want to be extra certain, mow around it and give the critters another week at it.
Now if your squirrel had passed away in the attic, I know for a fact that the odor lingers for at least a couple of weeks and eventually you end up with a mummy.
Nature is very efficient with those types of things. There is a reason why hardly anyone ever finds a dead bear in the woods for example. There are plenty of vermin, bacteria, and insects waiting to take care of the job. Small animals don’t last very long. We had a dead white-tail deer on our property once that lasted about a week until the only thing left were a few stripped bones.
The pathologist/anthropologist who created the Body Farm in Tennessee put together an equation based on temperature and time that accurately determined how long fly eggs took to hatch into maggots and from there mature into flies. That’s a major part of decomposition right there.
Unfortunately, I can’t remember what the equation was.
