Putting the bones in the trash

Ok, I admit the is a strange quirky thing with me and I may be the only person to do this.

I have a weird thing where after I've eaten an animal that I've seen alive, I can't seam to just put the bones in the trash. For me, it seems weird and disrespectful to put the bones in the trash. Which I myself do find odd, after all, if I eat a piece of store bought chicken, I just toss out the bones along with the package it came in. But, for some reason when I ate my neighbor's chicken and I knew who I was eating, I just couldn't bring myself to put in the trash. So far I have I have found this to also be the case with the rabbits I once raised with my neighbor (a decade ago) and the two guinea pigs I ate recently

So you may ask, "If I did not put them in the trash, what did I do with them?". Mostly, I leave the bones outside for scavengers. You might get onto me for contributing to skunk/raccoon problems, but I left them near property lines or near parks and road side stops far away from chicken coups and places where people raise small animals. Somehow in my mind, it is easier because the bones get recycled into the ecosystem.

I suppose that I have the ability to take such elaborated measure because of how rare it is for me to eat home grown meat. When I lived next to Cindy and Tom, I eat meat from seven creatures I've seen alive and since then it has only been the two guinea pigs.

So am I weird? What do you think?

I don't think it's weird at all.
I actually have a hard time sending most animal or plant material to a landfill.
I compost or feed almost every scrap or trimming to the animals.
Bones get buried.
It just feels right to give it back to the soil.

I totally agree with both of you, nice to see some others are like this--sometimes I freeze the bones until I have enough, then I make bone broth in the pressure cooker-, after that the bones are soft enough for the rabbits and chickens to eat.

Honestly, I'm sort of the same. But this goes for everything, not just those I knew when they were alive. I have dogs though, so all my scraps go to them and they appreciate it. I had a large nubian goat go down a while back and I moved her to the wooded area of my property, got her comfortable and put her down. I didn't bother burying her, I didn't eat her either as I wasn't really prepared for that (she went down while I was at work and it was already getting dark). I never smelled her and she was nothing but bones in less than a week. Actually, around 4 days in and she was just bones and dry hide. The dogs weren't even to blame, they were only interested in the hide and bones after they dried out. Before them, it was vultures and insects I'm sure. Nature knows exactly how to keep things clean.

As long as I know something wasn't poisoned or diseased or possibly exposed to such things, I let nature take care of it. Rare cases when that is the case (such as rats/mice possibly baited with poisons or carrying diseases/parasites) I double bag and take them to the landfill to prevent any unwanted contact. I'll also do this with certain animals killed by certain predators that are known for carrying diseases that are deadly to my critters.

That and having lost kits or culled animals that were not useful for food were a slight issue when I no longer had land in the country. The only real way to dispose of anything was the garbage but it was so wrong. Normally I would let such things become further food for something or I could dig a hole anywhere on 40-80acres of land if I wanted to bury it. In town I had to stick leftover parts and even small bodies in the trash or you have to have a vet dispose of larger animals for you if there is nowhere else to take them. For awhile I didn't even have a yard and it's technically illegal in many city limits to bury dead pets. Although some do just put a size limit on it that would not apply to rodents or rabbits. You didn't even throw away food scraps anyway on the farms I grew up on because it meant more trash to haul out when something will clean it up off the land. Only the things we could not break down by any other method went in the garbage and previous generations would often just dig a pit on the farm for that garbage. All sorts of stuff makes it way to the surface in livestock pastures that were not useful for putting crops because many were once garbage pits before being filled and replanted. We would also even bury mice and birds that died to the cats or accidents when we were younger so on top of being weird to throw away scavenger edible or compostable things it's extra weird it was alive and then something you raised. It became much more frequent with snakes as they sometimes refuse a rodent, guinea pig pup, chick, rabbit kit... and under their heat lamps without being gutted it will bloat and rot fast. I can't just try feeding it another day like I do with dogs and cats.

I have some of these ground meat links warming right now to try to convert my snakes so there is less waste and it's a healthier complete diet for them to basically have the same thing as whole ground prey sold for dogs and cats. So far the person who came up with the concept and has been refining it gives a 50/50 conversion for more difficult feeders and pretty good odds for my "garbage disposal" species. I got them the full blend of bullfrog, guinea fowl, quail, chicken, and rabbit. Unfortunately the need for a specialized casing to get them to eat the links and digest the casing whole with the ground prey means I can't really grind my own feeders for them.