Yes, Kentucky law lets you bury a dead horse, cow or other farm animal on your own land if the grave meets the burial terms in KRS 257.160, the state’s livestock carcass statute. That statute gives you forty-eight hours after the carcass is found to dispose of it, unless you keep it in cold storage. If you would rather not dig, a licensed hauler can take it where one works your county, and the county extension agent or the fiscal court should know who that is.
How long do you have to deal with a dead horse or cow in Kentucky?
You have forty-eight hours from the time you find it. Subsection (2) of KRS 257.160 tells the owner of domestic livestock, poultry or fish to dispose of the carcass by one of the methods in subsection (1) within that window, unless it goes into cold storage.
By the statute’s wording, if a horse dies overnight in a back pasture, the clock starts when you find it in the morning. The University of Kentucky’s Beef Center of Excellence sums the rule up as disposal within 48 hours of death. Either way, start making calls as soon as you find the animal, because few small farms have a cooler big enough to hold a horse or a grown cow.
Leaving it where it fell is not one of the methods. The Kenton County Conservation District warns that carcasses left in pastures or open pits teach predators to connect livestock with food and draw them to the farm.
Can you bury a horse or cow on your own land in Kentucky?
Yes, if the grave meets KRS 257.160. Pick ground that pond or stream overflow never covers, at least one hundred feet from any well, spring, sinkhole or watercourse and the same distance from any house, stable or public highway. The hole has to be at least four feet deep.
The statute also has you open the abdominal and chest cavities along their full length with a sharp blade. The whole carcass then gets two inches of quicklime and no less than three feet of soil on top. Quicklime is caustic, so put on gloves and eye protection before you open the bag.
Across much of Kentucky’s farmland, water that runs into a sinkhole drains underground through limestone and can come back up at a spring or end up in a well. Measure the hundred feet from every sinkhole, spring and well near the spot, including the shallow sinkholes out in a hayfield and any across the fence line.
A hole that deep and long enough for a horse is machine work, so find a backhoe or an excavator, and someone to run it, as soon as you decide to bury. Check where buried water, power and gas lines run before the bucket goes in.
County and city rules on top of the statute vary across Kentucky, so ask before you dig. Start with the extension office in your county, since the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service calls the state extension service a good place to learn the local laws and best practices. You can also ask your county conservation district.
What are the other legal ways to dispose of a large farm animal?
Besides burial, the methods in KRS 257.160 include removal by a duly licensed rendering establishment and disposal in a contained landfill approved under KRS Chapter 224. Composting is on the list too, but only in a facility that follows the board’s regulations and holds approval under Chapter 224.
If you want to use a landfill, call it before you load anything and ask whether it accepts a horse or a cow. Before you try composting a horse, ask the state veterinarian’s office what the board’s regulations expect of the facility. For more on each method, the Beef Center’s page points to the University of Kentucky publication ID-167, On-Farm Disposal of Animal Mortalities.
Who hauls a dead horse or cow away in Kentucky?
A licensed hauler or renderer, where one serves your county. The University of Kentucky’s Beef Center of Excellence says dead-animal removal services can vary considerably by county and often change, and that the county ANR agent or the fiscal court should know what is available now. Call one of them first.
ANR stands for agriculture and natural resources, and the fiscal court is the county’s governing body. The Beef Center’s page also says rendering services across Kentucky have declined greatly over the last few years. It tells cattle owners to find out what their county has before they need the service, so if you keep an older horse, make that call now.
The Kenton County Conservation District’s instructions to its farmers show how a pickup works. Its first step is to call a licensed hauler within 24 hours of the animal’s death. When you call, the district says to give the hauler directions to your farm, how you will pay, the type of animal, roughly when it died, where it is lying, and a phone number where you can be reached during the day. Check with your own hauler, but the district says haulers generally require the animal to be out of the barn and on a hard surface, and will not drive out into a pasture to collect it.
That leaves the moving to you. A horse that died in a stall or out in a field has to be moved to the lane or a gravel pad before the truck gets there. On most farms that means a tractor with a loader, or a skid steer, and a heavy chain or strap, so line them up when you call the hauler.
The district has also offered Kenton County farmers cost share on the haul bill. The large-animal section of the Kentucky disposal guide covers that program and the Hardin County farm-animal line.
Do not count on a city service for livestock. Lexington’s Division of Waste Management names cows, horses and sheep as large animals it will not pick up.
What changes if a veterinarian put the horse down?
The carcass becomes a hazard to scavengers. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service warns that the drugs vets use to put down pets and livestock linger after use and can be lethal for scavenging wildlife and domestic animals. Tell the hauler how the horse died, and keep dogs and wildlife off the carcass until it is buried or hauled.
When an animal is put down by pentobarbital injection, the drug spreads quickly through its body, and the Service says organs such as the liver can carry especially high concentrations. Eagles are particularly vulnerable, because they move fast on a fresh carcass, drive other scavengers off and go for the internal organs.
The Service’s preferred disposal is cremation, where it is available. If you bury a horse that was put down, do it promptly, since the Service says immediate deep burial keeps scavengers from reaching the carcass. If frozen ground stops you digging, the Service says to cover or store the carcass in a way that keeps scavengers out. Covering it does not pause Kentucky’s forty-eight hours, so call a hauler as soon as you know you cannot dig.
The Service tells pet owners to ask their veterinarian what end-of-life services the practice offers and how it handles disposal. If you are planning to have a horse put down, ask the same two questions, and decide with the vet how it will be done.
What about a dead deer or other wild animal on the farm?
That is a different job. The independent operators who take requests through this site handle dead wild animals such as deer, raccoons, opossums and skunks, and they do not take horses or cattle. A request for a wild carcass on the same property is passed on where an operator covers the address.
A dog or cat is neither livestock nor wildlife, and the dead dog or cat guide covers pets. For a deer that died in a field, see dead deer removal in Kentucky, and send a request with the address and where the carcass is lying.