Whether you love squirrels or view them as backyard rodents, discovering a dead animal in your garden is not a pleasant surprise.
If you are in a similar scenario, you may be shocked and wonder what to do with dead squirrels in your backyard. Can you throw it away by yourself?
If you are confused, it’s time to dive into this article to look for practical solutions. Let’s scroll down!
Table of Contents
Why Do Squirrels Die In The Backyard?
Here are a few potential reasons why so many squirrels keep dying in your backyard. Let’s take a look!
Disease
The squirrel might have died from any number of illnesses that it could have caught.
However, most of these illnesses have identical clinical symptoms, so only particular exams, diagnostics, or lab testing may identify a disease.
This tree-dwelling rodent may get parasites, viruses, and bacteria, as shown below:
- Bartonella: an illness caused by bacteria called a cat-scratch infection, carried through fleas, lice, and ticks.
- Toxoplasmosis: a parasite infection that causes mortality in rats by changing their neurological behavior and lowering their fear. Cats’ feces contain parasites that allow the illness to spread.
- Tularemia: also called rabbit fever, is widely recognized as lethal to small mammals and spread by tick, flea, and bug bites.
Since the development of medicines, tularemia is seldom fatal in people once diagnosed.
- Animal Distemper Virus: A highly contagious, frequently fatal illness that affects tiny wild animals and occasionally affects canines.
Distemper has no known treatment, and a rodent may have acquired it through other ill animals’ feces or body fluids.
- Rabies: Rabies may spread to any mammals if they are scratched or bitten. While theoretically possible, rabies is extremely uncommon in most rodent groups.
Squirrel pox: This virus may have caused the death of the deceased rodent if it had protrusions that resembled tumors.
Poison
While many places forbid the deliberate poisoning of squirrels, the animal might be accidentally exposed to hazardous materials.
Squirrels are garden pests, and they might come into touch with fatal insecticides intended for use on other species.
For instance, rat poison is a kind of all-purpose insecticide that is fatal to all tiny rodents.
If you suppose it is the cause of a dead squirrel, you should keep all your pets away from it.
Falling
A squirrel may have fallen from a tall tree and perhaps suffered head damage, another highly probable explanation.
Despite their high ability to agility, squirrels may have suffered a catastrophic head injury if they had fallen from a height.
Pet Predation
Your dogs or cats might have contributed to the squirrel’s demise if they had access to the outdoors.
Squirrels are some of the most frequently seen in communities, and your pets could have hurt one of them.
Electric Shock
Despite being adept climbers, squirrels sadly don’t always find a way to avoid disaster.
The squirrel may have slipped on a wire and perished from electric shock despite being highly agile while ascending power lines.
Fake Out
Many people reported that they saw a squirrel dropped from a branch and spent around 30 seconds lying motionless.
After that, it got up and leaped as if nothing had happened.
Therefore, it’s best to allow it to be alone for perhaps 30 minutes. After a given amount of time, if it still seems stiff, it may pass away.
Can You Touch A Dead Squirrel?
The short answer is no! Despite being adorable, squirrels may carry a wide range of illnesses. Few of them, nevertheless, may be regarded as harmful to people.
However, if you discover a deceased squirrel in the yard, you should take extra precautions when handling it.
The Center for Disease Control reports that although it’s rare for rodents to bear and spread rabies, there are still certain risks.
Moreover, you might get tularemia, among other diseases, by handling ill or deceased squirrels.
This illness, often known as rabbit fever, is frequently observed in small rodents such as squirrels and many other rodent genera.
F. tularensis, a bacterium that may infect people in several ways, can remain on a deceased animal for several weeks.
When touching a dead squirrel, the germs may get into your body through minor skin scratches and wounds.
It is crucial to put on gloves before handling a dead animal because of this reason.
People should perform the appropriate safety measures if a rodent bites or claws a person.
Sleep deprivation, melancholy, numbness, paralysis, and headaches are early warning signals.
Other illnesses people can get from squirrels include salmonellosis, leptospirosis, and Lyme disease.
What To Do With Dead Squirrels In Your Backyard?
The most crucial thing to remember is to keep your hands clean before discussing the potential solutions for handling a dead squirrel.
As previously said, it is better to refrain from handling the dead animals since you cannot know what may have struck them.
They could have had a sickness and passed away. Hence, you risk contracting the illness yourself or spreading it to your furry friends by handling it.
Don’t let your pets near a dead rodent. They could look appetizing for your dogs or cats, but the tiny creatures might get poisoned.
Most importantly, you must check whether that squirrel is dead or not. Below are some obvious signs:
- Absence of breathing
- Eye reflex loss
- Sluggish, lifeless, and cold body
- Soft tongue and gums
- Rigor mortis
Here are a few techniques that several homeowners have used to remove dead squirrels from their backyards:
Solution 1: Throw It Away
Throwing deceased rodents in the trash is the simplest and most preferred disposal method. Follow the steps below to guarantee your safety:
- Before picking up the corpse, it’s best to put on gloves.
- Take a long-hand shovel, dig up the corpse, and toss it in a carrier bag.
- Place it inside another one and seal it off properly.
- After that, you may discard it outside in the garbage.
- Remember to wash your hands thoroughly and immediately properly.
Many people wonder whether throwing a dead animal in a trash bin is illegal. It will be legal if you toss the corpse in a heavy-duty bag.
Solution 2: Bury It
Burying the corpse is the second solution. If you plan to bury the dead, do so away from any bodies of water, both surface and ground.
It’s best to bury the corpse 2 feet in depth or more profoundly. Moreover, it would be best to hide it 200 feet or more from any water supplies.
Solution 3: Contact A Sanitation Service
It’s important to note that the removal of deceased animals from your house is not the responsibility of animal control.
However, depending on the city you are living in, you can contact the neighborhood animal services to ask whether they can come and remove the dead rodent from your backyard.
Otherwise, you may contact cleanup services, who will perform the task for you at no cost. Another choice is to call a trustworthy wildlife removal agency.
How To Remove Smell From Dead Squirrels?
The squirrel’s total decomposition might take up to two weeks. If you hesitate to dispose of the dead, you must put up with the foul stench for two weeks.
You might need to hire an expert to demolish the walls and retrieve the carcass if a rodent perished inside the attic wall.
Attempting to find and dispose of the corpse can eliminate a lot of the smell of a deceased squirrel the fastest.
If finding the corpse and hiring professionals are challenging for you, you can think about deodorizers.
Here are some suggestions for dealing with the stink of a carcass:
Vinegar
Fill several glasses with vinegar, then scatter them about your attic-the vinegar functions through odor absorption.
Baking Soda
It has proven to be a great odor remover through testing.
Spray the smelly areas with a mixture of water and baking soda that you’ve made.
For maximum efficiency, you must repeat this numerous times each day.
Coffee Grounds
Don’t simply toss these coffee grounds in the trash if you love drinking coffee daily; they may also act as a natural deodorizer.
Deodorizers
You may always purchase products designed to work as both a scent bag and an odor remover.
In A Nutshell
This article has shown you all the potential causes and what to do with dead squirrels in your backyard.
The most crucial thing to pay attention to is to avoid touching a dead animal with your hands if you accidentally come across one.
Put on safety gloves before putting the rodent in a tight plastic bag.
To stop the transmission of illness, wash the place where you discovered the deceased rodent.
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