how do you dispose of you deceased snakes?

Originally Posted by jaxom1957

Let me be the cold-hearted bastard in the bunch. When a pet dies, I feel the loss as deeply as anyone. What I don't feel is any reverence for the carcass. My dead animals go into a trash bag and then into the dumpster. If I still lived on a ranch, they would be going to the hogs, which frankly do not care WHAT they eat and have been known to be used by killers to dispose of their human victims.

I feel the same about humans. Once the person dies, the carcass is just that: a hunk of rotting meat that once housed a life. Without the life, the carcass is worthless. I don't like burials in coffins, mausoleums, any of that dreck. Between golf courses and cemeteries, far too much land is wasted; it'd better serve society if we built low-income housing on it, or medical clinics. Because the law requires that the body be disposed of within a restrictive list of parameters, my choice is cremation. After that, do what you will with the ashes. Open the jar in a convertible going down the freeway and let the ashes annoy the other drivers one last time, what do I care.

I remember my deceased pets with great fondness and regret at their passing, just as I do my lost relatives and friends. I just refuse to treat something as mundane as no-longer-animate flesh and bones as worthy of reverence.

Do you think you are cold-hearted, or do you imagine us viewing you that way? I've had beloved pets die, and depending on whose pet it was, they were 1) buried by my parents (their pets) or 2) cremated as per the wife's instructions (our pets). I have been amenable to both solutions. In an episode of Star Trek TNG long ago, I remember a Klingon character saying in response to the equivalent question for a dead Klingon: "It is an empty shell; treat it accordingly," or something similar, and I feel the same way. I get more attached to pets than I can justify or explain, but their dead bodies are of no import to me.

However, in response to a couple unrelated points presented in this post:

1) If you are ever in Cambridge, MA, go to Mt. Auburn cemetery. It is a wonderful, park-like place, I think it was designed by Olmstead or someone of equal import, and people go there simply to enjoy the area. A cemetery need not be a waste of land, even by your narrow definition. Since, however, people actually pay for those slots in the ground, they figure into the economy the same as all other non-preserve space and should have the same status. And, if at some point no one cares about it, you can certainly use it for commercial development down the road; I believe this has been done in the past with Indian graveyards, although I could be wrong. It is not spoken for in perpetuity; nothing ever is. Toxic dumps are far more damning as far as property goes.

2) It is interesting given your statements that you have a preference as to what should happen to you. Remember that you will be dead, and whatever assurances you have as to your wishes being fulfilled are for your benefit now, not then. Your cadaver will be effectively the same as everyone else's (except for the jewelry ) and should get the same disinterested treatment that your deceased snakes receive. I have no interest in my body when I am done with it; I will leave that future to those who are living in it. A dumpster will be fine, if unlikely.

Cheers,
-Sean

Originally Posted by jaxom1957

Either with a living will, such as is used for medical patients to direct their care if unable to communicate (DNR requests, etc.) or in your will, with a codicil directing the executer how your remains should be handled.

It's not that simple, actually. As you might imagine, there are a few laws dealing with the disposal of human remains . . . For example, it wouldn't matter a whit if I wrote in my living will or my will (I already have both) that I wanted to be laid out on a palette on my rooftop for the birds to eat. Whoever put me up there would get into serious trouble for doing so--it's against the law because it would be a public health threat. Universities and morgues both have pretty strict rules about where they get their bodies, and what can be done with them afterward. Now it's true that people break those rules all the time. Most times you sprinkle someone's ashes somewhere you're breaking the law. But the people I know who could take care of dissecting me and preparing my skeleton will all be career anthropologists by then, and breaking the law in dealing with human remains doesn't go over so well at the annual meetings . . .

Originally Posted by desertanimal

Well, if they're big enough, they'll go into the freezer until I can get some dermestids started. Then, they'll go in the dermestids until the skeleton is nice and clean. Then, they'll be carefully articulated and put on one of the living room shelves with the other bones. I wouldn't bother with a hatchling, though. Those I would just toss in the trash. But I wouldn't pass up a nice, reasonably-sized snake skeleton.

This was the idea I had for all of my pets... how would you go about this?

I think I'd probably do the plastic bag --> dumpster thing for the smaller snakes, but when it's time for the big boy to go, I'd probably take him to the vet for proper disposal. Just too big and any number potentially wild and woolly things could happen if someone found a 10'+ dead snake in a dumpster...

But dead feeder breeders? Straight into the dumpster - fling!

As far as humans go, I'd prefer cremation in the cheapest cardboard box ("most modestly priced receptacle") and then some illegal "sprinkling" (more like mulching) around a tree or something beneficial. Screw mortuaries and grave sites...bleh.