I didn’t realize that you were a farmer.
We buried one kitten in our yard in FL, one dog in our other yard in FL, one cat in our yard here, and the other cat, the vet took care of for us (I didn’t want cremains.)
We’ve got a 60+# geriatric dog who will probably go to the vet either to be put down if necessary or disposed of if she dies at home. While we have a large yard, it’s well-treed, so lots of roots, and the soil is pretty heavy with clay. My husband and I are well into our 50s - we’re not going to be digging any deep holes.
I know there are those who think we’re cold, but once the critter has died, the part that mattered to us is gone. We don’t need little urns on the mantle or markers in the yard. We’ve got photos and memories, plus the remaining critters demand our attention.
Little fish: Flush
Bigger Fish: Plastic bag and into the garbage
Recently euthanized cat: Vet’s mass cremation
Childhood hamsters/rats/etc: Buried in the yard
Cremation for later dispersal of ashes on my rocky property. However dispersal has yet to take place, and I’m getting quite the collection …
I’ve only lost one critter since living in the aforementioned rocky state of Tennessee. Jerry, the beta fish had an honorable burial at sea.
When I lived in a less rocky area, pets were buried in the backyard or my folks’ backyard when I lived in an apartment. We always just wrapped them in a blanket (dogs and cats) or wrapped them in a tissue and found a small box (fish, frogs, hamsters, gerbils and the like) and buried near the maple in back. I think that there are about a dozen cats, two dogs and Og knows how many smaller critters there. Usually, us kids said a few words over them as well.
Depends on what kind of animal, what it died from, and where I’m living.
Fish generally get fed to the cat, or flushed, depending on the size. My last gold fish that died weighed in at 5lbs, so the cat got that one.
If it’s a cat, dog, ferret, hamster, etc., and I have no woods backing my house, they’ll get buried about 3ft down. If I do have woods backing my house, I’ll usually take the corpse out about half a mile into the woods and leave it for nature to take care of, unless the animal has been poisoned, then it gets cremated.
Now that I think about it, cremation for all of the cats and dogs that have died.
I found a pet crematorium not too far from me and when I lost my dog it seemed to me the last act of dignity and respect I could give her was to take her myself to be cremated. I couldn’t cope with the idea of her in the vet clinic’s freezer waiting for the pickup person to come and get her. When the cat died a couple of months later, it seemed natural to take him to be cremated, too. He always did like to be warm. When the dog that went with my ex when we split died, I took her up there too. I was starting to feel like a regular.
I have a shelf with all the little urns and some pictures. My shrine to dead pets. Don’t know what else to do with them.
I’ve gone with individual cremation and I keep the ashes. We do have one cat buried in the yard; he died before I knew cremation was an option (1996). When my horse had to be euthanized, I had to call a rendering company. It happened in February, it was during a stretch of below zero temps, and I boarded her so I didn’t have land to bury her on. I hated to do it but I really had no other choice. 
I recently had a pet bird die and I took her to the vets to have her cremated. I wanted to bury her, and had a place out on a semi-remote jobsite picked out, but I was afraid that bears or fox or something would dig her up. She was a sweet old bird that I got as a rescue bird, I’d only had her around 6 years, she was pretty darned old when I got her. The idiots who’d owned her before me had stuck her in a dark back room somewhere and barely fed and watered her. She got to spend the last years of her life getting “out” time, getting picked up and scritched (when she’d allow it) and getting to have an obnoxious roommate to keep her company. Even so, I was attached, but not as much as my other pets.
With my dog, or baby bird (well she’s two, but was hand-raised and believes herself to be a tiny winged human. either that or I’m a large wingless bird, 
one of the two), or cat I…I don’t know… I’m really emotionally attached to them, and my dog is well, MY DOG…so…
I might want to keep the ashes. My dog is 11 and if she’s typical for her breed, she’ll keep going for another 7 to 8 years, my cat is only 5. Cockatiels live for what? 20/30 years? Good question, I have no idea.
When I lived in NYC I had my kitties cremated at the vet. Since most of them were euthanized there, it was no problem. And no, I do NOT want the ashes.
Now that I live in a house I bury them in the back yard, especially around the pussy willows.
We bury the cats – three, so far, in about 20 years – but we had Boomer the dog cremated. It was winter, or we would have buried him near the garden. (We didn’t ask for the ashes.)
A couple weeks back I was dropping my daughter off at her house, and there was a dead cat in the street, a pretty orange male, looked well-fed but its tail was missing. Tracy insisted that we pick it up. We took it to her house, called city hall, and they sent someone over to get it. I don’t know what the city does with them.
I have to add . . .
My parents lived in this house previously, and I know they buried a number of dogs and birds in the back yard; not in any specific area, just wherever there was room. Every once in a while I’ll be digging and I’ll hit what’s left of a blanket [dog] or a jar [bird]. Just this past spring I was planting something, and the shovel hit a glass gefilte fish jar. All I could see inside was newspaper. Without further examining the contents, I re-buried it in another location. Now that I’m adding kitties to the yard, whoever lives here next will probably think we had some kind of satanic animal sacrifices.
We live in BFE, and I am always shooting critters and the occasional sick pet. Afterwards I just scoop it up with a shovel and carry it to the far north side of the property so we can’t smell it. Coyotes will munch it up in a day or two.
I love living in BFE.
What’s BFE?
Bumble (bum, bung) Fuck Egypt…aka the boonies.
Just so people know - shooting companion animals, i.e. dogs, cats, horses as defined in illinois - is illegal in many states (not all). Make sure wherever you live that it’s not in the books as a felony. Ohio’s guidelines are ambiguous.
Growing up, our dogs and cats got a nice hole in the back yard with a few words and a cross to mark the spot.
When I was 21, I lived in an apartment with my childhood dog. She was 16, and had to be put down. This was one of the hardest things I ever had to do; it was July 4, and all my family was gone for the holiday. My aunt and uncle lived out in BFE, and told me I could bury her in their yard. I was so grateful for that. About 10 years later and married, I bought their house. And later still, when my BFF had to put his K9 partner down, I made him the same offer. He was an apartment dweller, and in the same spot.
10 years later, he still makes her marker his first stop when he drops by…
I have something in my eye…
Anyway, if you live in the San Francisco area, I urge you to visit the Presidio Pet Cemetaryif you are over that way.
My wife and I discovered it almost 20 years ago, and it was so touching.
The markers range from a simple plank to carved marble statues and pictures…
We took the kids there a couple of years ago, and it’s still the same.
Furby the Dog was wrapped in newspaper and buried in the top corner of my land. Two old scraps of wood bound together with wire made a cross. My husband did that (lapsed Catholic), although I’m an atheist I didn’t say anything. I planted a bougainvillea on top. The dogs favourite shrub. We were looking at it the other day and from my side I could see a hole had been dug and various bones scattered. I stood on them so my daughter wouldn’t see, then later shoved them back in the hole. Fuck - he was only two.