I'm chasing operating techniques to dig a grave. The problem I have is a much loved, but failing, nag, belonging to the other half. A hole is required. The equipment to hand is a 70hp dozer and a small backhoe. The ground is rocky and hard. 300mm top soil, 600mm clay, 100mm indeterminate and then hard pan. The rocks are plentiful and large. The backhoe will eat the top soil, struggle through the clay and then basically stop at the hard pan, assuming it doesn't hit a rock first. The dozer will quickly tidy away the top soil, ready for re-use, peel away the clay, and providing the area's large enough to use the ripper, keep heading down through the hard pan. The problem is the size of the hole. I've plenty of space to work in but I'd really like some advice as to how to maximise depth without covering too much ground. The dozer has a single off-set ripper. Should I aim at a trench 1.5 dozer widths? Problem is it might rapidly narrow, as the ripper is well inside the line of the tracks, depends how much the blade corners can take out. Should I simply go for broke and build a huge mound whilst lowering a tennis court sized area into the ground. Might be the simplest but the chances are I'll hit some big rocks which will turn into projects of their own as I create another hole digging them out! I'm wondering how practical it is to work the dozer in a circle, with a ramp leading out for the spoil. Seems hard on steering clutches and one rock would spoil the party. Any advice from those who've had to dig a hole with a dozer will be much appreciated!
Welcome back Nutwood - doesn't sound like an easy situation all round. Them rocks & the hardpan sound like a job for a 20 ton excavator. Do you have a goal depth? 6 foot? Does your backhoe have the reach to dig out a short, semi steep (@ each end) slot? You maybe able to scratch up some hard pan using corner tips & tilt at the bottom of a reasonably steep ramp (& using the down ramp force of the dozer) but may have trouble getting it out with the dozer when it gets deep without making the hole & slot too big - if enough reach with the hoe you could scratch out the loosened material that way? Just an idea - haven't had to do it that way though. Big rocks could be a spanner in the works but. Jimbob :Cowboy:
Go as deep as you can easy. Then push a mound on top. It will go down in short order.
Do you have an Ikea nearby?
Sorry to hear about the situation. Might help things along to apply powdered lime to the remains before covering them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Vmnq5dBF7Y just an idea.
I can tell you from experience that you need to get 2-3 feet of dirt over it. It's not good when the dog brings your wife a piece of her old friend. You should leave the dirt mounded a foot or so over it also, so that you don't end up with a hole later.
haha I think a few joints in the euro zone would take it for there meat balls mate
I just had to deal with the same thing. Horse dropped dead one night in rainstorm. Lots of rocks boulders and dg. Trusty 63 year old Cat HT4 loader had been having oil pressure issues but hung in low green. Took not too long to dig hole. Hit no boulders. Pushed horse in. As soon as I got some dirt in I started compacting. Coyotes had tunneled in to calf I buried a few years back. About the time I finished the oil pressure was pegged thank goodness. Got her up on blocks checking oil screen. Kept checking grave site, no tunneling, all good, planted oats.
I like the ideas of easy dig as far as poss then mound up a little with a bit of lime. I had to do a similar thing to that when dingoes got a couple of our pet boer goats - it's been around 18 months now & I figure to plant tree on top soon that likes blood & bone fertiliser. Jimbob
Couple options! Found a high bank of dirt then try digging your hole next to the toe of the slope,if your lucky you will will get deep enough without issues.If not, to finish the job you could rob some extra dirt of the high part of the bank,blending you grave into the same degree as the slope.Thus not making a big mound in the middle of nowhere. I know you don't want to hear this,but there is alway the option to cremating it.Equals smaller hole, less depth and space needed.Good luck.
Sounds like this would be your easiest option, provided you have plenty of timber on hand,maybe a stickraked heap. Cheers, Greg
My first thought was dig the hole just big enough for the horse with the backhoe...then go rent a hyd breaker for the backhoe "IF" you run into rock. I cant imagine using a dozer for such a thing..?..?..Seems silly the amount of time/fuel/wear & tear on a dozer, just to bury a horse?.?..You'd end up with a hole big enough to bury 20 horses. I buried a horse for a friend right before winter hit. The horse was ill and wondered off into some thick timber deep on their property, and just killed over. You could barely get to it by foot...the owner was insistent on getting it buried.
im gonna ask a dumb question, but iv had several people tell me this "its illegal to bury a horse" check on this before someone shows up & starts asking questions.
Last year a neighbor came over and asked if I would bury a horse for a lady up the road that was going to have to put her horse down. I said, well, fuel, and time, loading and unloading the machine, a couple hundred should cover it. Well!! the neighbour said, considering the lady's pending grief, I thought you'd be a better neighbor, I'll go get my cousin to do it. OK, I replied. You do that. Funny, that neighbor still doesn't come around any more.
As others have suggested burn it, don't bury it (though wait until the end of the fire season.....) it's a whole lot easier, cheaper, cleaner & you don't risk consequential wildlife damage if you using toxins rather a bullet to put the animal down - on the odd occassion when we've had to put any of our stock down we always burn (in preference to bury where you bury the carcass can last for years) & with a slow pile burn there'll be nothing left in a day o so.
Waste not want not, we feed our old horses, crook cows to the dogs (we have 8) easy to clean up from under the kennel. Otherwise a 4 foot deep hole and mound the dirt on top, down wind from the house if its close.
i would check out composting it. Hog confinements do it here in Iowa. there are some video's on You Tube.
Well, I made a start on the job this evening. I appreciate the point being made by those who can't understand the fuss being made over a horse but this was a horse mad girl's first horse. Cost me $3000 more years ago than I'm prepared to mention. All things come to an end and this is the end for this horse. The spot chosen is one much liked by the client. Naturally on top of a hill, rather than down in the valley where there's good deep soil! Anyway, I've adopted a slot system. 1.5 blade widths across. The topsoil I removed first and pushed uphill, ready for easy covering. I hit hardpan early, virtually no clay band, but it's breaking up well. One ripper pass is shattering it out nearly a metre either side. I'm creating a spoil pile either end of my trench where I push up the pile and deposit over the top. Basically I'm creating a valley between two piles; as it gets deeper, it gets wider. The trench is just wide enough for me to spin and work the other way. I've hit a few rocks but not in bad spots and none over a metre across. They've all come out readily and I've simply bowled them down the back of my spoil heaps. I'm down about 1.5m. If I can get another metre I'll reckon the job done. Mind you, the hole would fit a few more horses; what it lacks in depth, it makes up for in area. Perhaps I should advertise?
This will be the best way to do it. I hide mountains of clearing brush this way. Make sure to cover it below the frost line and or the animal line.
End of the story Well, job's done. I got to 2.5m. To go deeper I'd have had to adopt Jeembawb's suggestion and bring in the back hoe to remove spoil or severely escalate the scale of operations. The system of working a slot and pushing the spoil up a ramp at either end worked well, however this depended on gradually lowering the ramps as I progressed downwards. Of course, the inevitable happened and I hit a couple of big floaters on one of my ramps. Might of been just one, hard to tell until you engage fully and I wasn't interested in going there. This meant one ramp got rapidly steeper and I discovered that, since I rebuilt the fuel pump, my dozer now has the grunt to wind the dozer backwards when the tracks don't go forwards. Won't do it on the flat but when the radiator is pointing skywards.... . I've never heard of anyone flipping a dozer over backwards but there was a moment there when I thought I might be heading down that path. Forward motion ceased, radiator cap still heading upwards. Actually on the angle she was on, more like radiator cap heading backwards. The ripper was fully up but was embedded in the ground! Anyway this told me that I was at the limit for that ramp. I did one more slice in the opposite direction and called it quits. I took a photo near the end. I'll see if I can add it to this post. It's a big hole, but not excessive. Mind you, I needed some fill material for another area and this was really good stuff, so I stole three truck loads ( about 20 tons) and it didn't make much of a dent in the big heap I dug out. Surprising just how much stuff you can push up in a few hours with a small dozer.
Did you rebuild the pump yourself Nutwood?
Nutwood - that looks to be a neat AD7 you have there, those little Fiat's have a big heart & punch well above their weight!!!!