A pleasant surprise, but a surprise nonetheless. I made a silly offer in a bar late one night. One of the people (one of maybe 75) showed up. He was embarrassed being the only one to come, but we had a nice evening.
The state game commission does this in Pennsylvania as well with dead deer, but I always thought the idea was that the dead animal would evaporate away overnight. Guess not.
Let’s ask Harry:
You put de lime on de carcass, and you a dig a big pit
You put de lime on de carcass, an’ you won’t be smellin’ it
You put de lime on de carcass, an’ you put it in de ground
You put de lime on de carcass, an’ call me in the mooooorning …
I can sympathize with not wanting to move it when it’s at that stage. I’ve both been there and done that and it’s a truly…remarkable experience. It’s unfortunate that it’s in the neighbor’s yard, since they likely wouldn’t appreciate to discover you’d built a bonfire on top of the corpse, wherever it happened to be. If it were in my yard that’s likely what I’d do so I didn’t have to move it, but having it on someone else’s property makes it a bit tricky.
The last time I had to move the drippy dead I used a shovel, a cardboard box, and my brother. Even so, when we pried it off the ground and onto the cardboard the smell was absolutely horrific. It did get it moved and disposed of, though, at least. Good luck.
You need that stuff they used in the movie Logan’s Run. Two quick passes over the body and not so much as a stain is left over.
The neighbors are away, and they just recently bought the property from the bank after a default. The backyard is about an acre that hasn’t been cared for in two years. I’d build a small fire in a heartbeat, but I’d wind up having to get a bunch of help to control the blaze.
That’s what I’ll go do tonight after work. I’ll prolly be retching the entire time, and if anything drips onto me I’ll wind up self-amputating the body part that gets slimed. I need a puking smiley. Oh, and when does your brother get off of work? 
Obviously vetbridge needs to do what medical examiners do with decomposing bodies - and put the raccoon in his freezer until it’s time to do the post.
One time on the forensic service I helped do an autopsy on someone who had, um, been dead for quite awhile. The M.E. had some gunk to slosh on the body which killed maggots (they can be quite distracting). Apparently this stuff is also used in the mortuary trade, so you could ask either your friendly neighborhood M.E. or mortician if they can spare a bottle, assuming it impedes decomposition as well.
And in related news, neighbors of this proposed farm can go back to grilling steaks in peace. :dubious:
Advice like this is why you earn the big bucks, Bill*. 
And Key Lime Pie, don’t forget.
I’ll bring the margaritas!
vetbridge, you mentioned trapping and relocating healty 'coons. How do you determine if they are healthy? I have trapped a few racoons while in the business of trapping feral cats, and ended up relocating two of them so they wouldn’t get shot by the man whose trash cans they were living out of. These were young fellas - and do you know I didn’t even get a “thanks for the ride”, let alone a couple of bucks for gas?
Seriously, I would like to know, because while we don’t have a bad rabies problem here it is something I’m always on the lookout for. I’m vaccinated but…
I am but a lowly foot soldier in the battle against ignorance. If I can prevent just one person from grilling a rabid raccoon, I’ve done my duty for the day.
Rabid cattle? :eek:
That’s a Far Side panel waiting to happen.
A temporary solution for the smell, next time you have a party, put a container like a bucket upside down over it and push the rim into the ground. You should be able to finish the cookout without everybody retching. A racoon would take some thing larger, but you get the idea.
They used to burn sulfer for plagues, but I think sulfer would ruin the cookout too. Add a little wax to the burning sulfer and you get rotten egg stink.
Well, I am vaccinated also so I don’t mind some slight risk. I trap the coons, then use a fork to wedge them into one end of the trap. I inject them with a Ketamine/Xylazine mix, remove them and examine them. I vaccinate for rabies (extra label) and give an injection if Ivermectin. I return them to the trap and allow time for anesthesia recovery. They are released either at my office location, or at a friend’s property.
I have castrated a few males, just because it is easy-peasy and helps keep the population in check. Oh, and although I am a little reckless, I do wear exam gloves when handling the animals and dose the anesthetic toward the high end of the range. I would rather have an anesthesia fatality then an angry half awake coon.
Heh, I suppose, but the reality is far from funny, horrible convulsions sometimes, brrr…
What normally happened would be that a rabid fox would go running through the herd, nipping the cattle, then in the fullness of time, rabies.
I don’t think it happens as much anymore, at least in my parts, since the Ontario government introduced a pretty successful program to vaccinate foxes.
A Rose for Emily by William Faulker. In it, the husband of the town’s crazy cat lady dies, and she just leaves the body in the bed, so the town’s folk sprinkle lime all around the house to get rid of the odor. So people obviously believed it would work as a deodorizing agent.
Following the trail this thread is following:
Do I understand that once you’ve been vaccinated for rabies (and are we talking about the same “I’ve been bitten by an unknown bat” vaccine everyone dreads?), there’s some lasting protection? Do you have to get revaccinated every few years? Guess that makes sense in your line of work, you never know when a new client will bring in Rover who hasnt had his shots and had had a close encounter with, say, a raccoon…
And about 12 years ago, I arrived home midafternoon. As I drove down my street (townhouses), I saw a raccoon wandering down our street, and going up and down the front steps of one house after another. Without getting out of the car, I called Animal Control. The person at the other end of the phone assured me the critter was surely NOT rabid and that this indeed was normal behavior. Erm, to this day I still don’t believe the person on the phone. Was that raccoon most likely rabid? (I gather they’'ve got a preference for nighttime activities and the business of wandering up/down stairs, nowhere near garbage cans etc., in broad daylight sounds odd).
Very odd unless it was someone’s pet.
Years ago I was working a solo night shift at a semiautomated radio station and had the wonderful job of checking tower readings some distance from the studio. As I was heading back a large raccoon waddled out of the brush and began following me. It joined me on the steps to the studio and wanted to come inside, which I discouraged (there was a brief temptation to let it in and then coax it into the station owner’s office, but at that time I still wanted to keep the job).
Vetbridge,
You've no doubt already done the dirty deed,but given the carcass location and your rural placement,it could be treated like compost.You would need to cover with carbonaceous material (wood chips,sawdust,straw,dead leaves ) which would pretty much stop the odor and in a year's time yield soil improvement.
Feral cats (or domestics who live out) use this method with their scat.
A carefully constructed compost pile of at least 1 cu.yd. can cook road kill groundhogs into but a few bones within a week.All bones gone in a month.
As for the behavior of raccoons none of the descriptions sounds unusual for either country or city animals.So apparently there are at least two governmental agencies putting lime on things? Someone should tell them it doesn’t work!
Any chance someone could be made to listen?
-FrL-