I gave our dog a proper burial but I wasn’t about to dig in this heavy, rocky soil for a goat. Sawdust worked great and since it had no odor, nothing bothered it. If you have an outdoor cat, they may use it as a litter box. You could lay some fence or poultry netting or even a tarp over it and weigh the edges down. I did the goat during the wet season. Since it’s summer, it probably wouldn’t hurt to wet all the sawdust down and put a tarp over it. Or at least all the sawdust in contact with the coon. Need a good home for the microbes. It is a compost pile after all.
Hi, thanks for the info.!
However, digging is not the problem here except for an occasional root. Deep sedimentary soil. (It will be hell next time the New Madrid Fault blows.)
We have lots of leaf litter and hickory nut shells to act as cover, too. You’re right about the decomposition of the bulk of organic matter, though. A 5’ high 15’ diameter pile of said litter and nuts is pretty well gone by the following early fall, if said pile is moist some of the time. :-)
The question is where does the diphacinone go and / or does it break down (microbes, chemical reaction w/ soil, etc. Don’t want to enter it into the food chain even at a very low level in the area of our garden if it sticks around long. Normally, the ‘coon would be fertilizer, if not food for the chickens. The garden and my adjacent fishing worm bed are our easiest places to dig, too, esp. this time of year. (Moist soil despite near-drought. The rest is heavy clay once one gets over 6” down.) But I could soak another area B4 Mr. Coon gets too fragrant... Assuming the diphacinone won’t “migrate” or stick around very long, that is.
Previously, I didn’t worry about it much with rats deep in their burrows, but I became more curious in this instance.