Spoiled meat for fertilizer?
Contributors to this thread:Whitetail Deer
From: Sweet Tooth
11-Sep-24
Unfortunately our freezer went bad, and I have several pounds of meat now unfit for human consumption.
Is there any benefit, or downside, to plowing that under in a food plot? I hate for it to go completely to waste!
Thanks
From: Acres4wildlife
11-Sep-24
I would think it would be dug up rather quickly. I would use some for coyote bait and let the buzzards have the rest. Sorry for your loss.
From: Mike B
12-Sep-24
If it's not too far gone, see if a local zoo could use it.
From: DonVathome
12-Sep-24
It would not be good fertilizer
From: WV Mountaineer
12-Sep-24
It is actually great fertilizer. But, it’s not going to work like that. You can’t “spread” it. So, unless you intend to spot fertilize your food plot, it offers you no use.
From: olddogrib
12-Sep-24
Might keep any nosey neighbors on their side of the fence! Acres, a few years back we had a real yote problem up at the "happy hunting grounds". I came up with the briliant idea to get free beef/venison ribcages from the local processor and put them out with game cams to be called and slaughtered by us wily hunters. I think in over a monthwe had one or two pics and I'm assuming those yotes were lost. Somebody told me that they haven't prospered for thousands of years by not being suspicious of stuff that's out of place! Made believers out of us!
From: Sweet Tooth
12-Sep-24
I appreciate the replies. It sounds like my best bet then would be to bury it next to several of the fruit and nut trees I planted rather than as fertilizer for food plot crops.
Thanks
From: Bwhnt
12-Sep-24
Throw in out and let the scavengers eat it. I can't imagine it's going to amount to much as fertilizer, just worm food.
From: WV Mountaineer
12-Sep-24
To the OP, it will do great. I’m not just talking here. Bury it. Then compare the grass over it to the surrounding grass. Won’t have to imagine anything at that point. You’ll see the difference.
From: B2K
12-Sep-24
Be careful where you bury it as skunks, bears, etc. may dig it up and thus create additional problems.
Look into the Yo Link monitors to put in your next freezer so that you are alerted to any problems. They're cheap and pretty easy to set up.
From: Hunts_with_stick
14-Sep-24
I wouldn’t bury it near fruit trees. They have shallow roots that really spread out. You will end up cutting through those when you dig. Probably best just to throw it out in the trash.
From: SD
14-Sep-24
I used to throw coon carcasses inside protective cage around my fruit trees. Nothing could really get to them so they just sat there and decomposed. Never took long for it to just be a pile of bones. Trees seemed to love it and always responded like they'd been fertilized. I don't have bears so there is that.
From: Sweet Tooth
30-Oct-24
So a bit of an update. I buried most of the meat in a shallow pit a couple weeks ago in a food plot, not next to any trees. I did put some next to a few trees, but with no rain, the dirt was too hard to dig that many holes. I covered the meat with a few inches of dirt with the tractor and ran the disc over it for good measure. So far no predators or scavengers have come and we finally have rain in the forecast, so I'll plant this weekend and see how it goes...
From: midwest
02-Nov-24
Several years ago when I was trapping heavily, I buried a big pile of coon carcasses in my vegetable garden in the fall. Early that next spring I planted a bunch of broccoli in that end of the garden. I had the best crop of broccoli ever. One head was the diameter of a basketball. It was incredible. No joke!
From: Sweet Tooth
04-Nov-24
Planted that plot on Saturday with plenty of non meat areas for comparison. I'll post results whatever they are here fairly soon.
From: Dale06
04-Nov-24
From: Sweet Tooth
16-Dec-24
Well, the rape, turnip mix I planted there has come up and become established. The plants in areas planted over the buried meat are noticeably bigger and just a bit greener. I'd say somewhere around a 50% increase in size. So, while definitely noticeable, I'm not sure if it's worth what it would take to bury deer and pig carcasses on a regular basis.
From: Bob Rowlands
16-Dec-24
'Dust to dust.' Everything organic that decomposes becomes fertilizer. 'From dust to dust' is the Grand Design.
The exception being us embalmed and in coffin. And eventually that also becomes dust.
