Ever blow up a horse?

I knew a couple of guys out of Choteau that had to do this. It’s a bugger when a mule or horse dies right along the trail and then you have bears coming into the carcass.
 
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seeth07 said:
Idk why this came up on my Google feed but I laughed the whole time reading it. Not sure if it's meant to be humerus or is a real article but fun to read regardless!

www.iflscience.com

The US Forest Service Guide To Completely Obliterating A Horse With Explosives

Trust us, this is not something you want to get wrong.
www.iflscience.com www.iflscience.com
Click to expand...
Funny enough my dad was a ranger and he and a buddy actually did this... they had a story about hiding behind a tree and the severed head flying past them.
 
We were in on a pig hunt and one of the boars had major injuries and was puss filled. We decided rather than taint all the meat we would dispose of the front half of the carcass. Put a Costco nut container full of tannerite, about 4 1/2# with the open carcass sitting over the top with the container of tannerite inside the rib cage. Totally vaporized the pig carcass, just a burnt stink in the air afterwards.
 
My cousin who worked for the Forest service in the Big Hole got to blow up a moose one year. Dang thing died in a spring that was a main water source for one of their back country camps. Fantastic video to watch!
 
I'd heard about it and seen the bulletin. My BIL had a horse fall off the trail on the way into Moose Creek from Selway Falls. He was dead in the river when he finally got the saddle back. Instead of exploding him though they set up a camera on the carcass to count bears.

I found the most interesting thing was to remove the horseshoes so as to reduce the chance of injuring bystanders...
 
No but I've been around a bloated horse. When our daughters first horse died, a large buckskin quarter horse, a young man who was a dog musher and practicing to be a vet came to get it. That big horse in the back of a little pickup truck, stiff legs up in the air looked hilarious.
 
Yes, for about 30 years I was the Lead Blaster on the Gallatin NF in Montana. Most of my blasting work was blowing up rocks on roads and trails, and teaching blasting classes, but during that time I also blew up 12 horses and one elk.

The reason the Forest Service wanted the dead horses removed was to minimize potential conflicts between grizzly bears and people in the backcontry.

My preferred method of blowing up a horse was to use 1"x8" sticks of dynamite connected with 50 grain Detonating chord and placed under the dead animal.

One time the FS had to put down a horse at one of their backcountry work stations. It was not feasible to get a backhoe in there to bury it, so the Ranger on that district called me. Word got around the staff of the Forest, and the day after I took care of the dead horse, the Forest Supervisor stopped me in the hall and asked me how it went. He also asked me how much dynamite I used. When I told him 30 sticks he looked a little shocked and asked why so much.

When I told him that was so I wouldn't have to pick up the big pieces and shoot him again, he completely understood.

I might have been able to use a fewer number of sticks, but I never had to gather up the pieces and shoot it again.

The one elk that I blew up was a cow that had died not far from a popular camping area on one of the Districts. By the time the District learned of the dead elk and called me, mostly birds had eaten most of the elk as there were more maggots than meat in the elk. One of the District staff officers came with me and I had him use sticks to prop up the body so I could get my charges under it. After the shot there was just a small hole in the ground and the surrounding area was covered with a reddish-brown slime.

One horse that I blew up was lying on the edge of a meadow and it was in the fall of the year. After I set my charges, I backed off the required 500 feet and I took a picture of the blast. That was back before digital cameras and I dropped off the film at a local camera shop to be developed. A couple of days later one of the ladies in the office announced that she was going to that camera shop and asked if any of us had pictures to be picked up, so I asked her to get mine.

When she got back to the office she was looking at my pictures, saw the reddish-brown plume of the explosion in the air and said "That's a pretty fall picture." When I told her that the plume was actually the vaporized horse going up in the air, she just said "Yuck!"

One of the last horses that I blew up had broken a leg in the fall and had to be put down near a main trail in the Absaroka Wilderness. The next spring a grizzly bear had found the carcass and he had charged people on horseback riding on that trail. So the District Ranger called me to get rid of the horse. A couple of District personnel went up there, and when we got to the site, the grizzly was on it. The bear ran off, I set my charges, and after the shot there was no piece of the horse larger than a Big Mack which the bear, coyotes, and birds would clean up in a day or two.

The blasting activites were one part of my job that I really enjoyed and other than the smell while I set the charges under a dead horse and going in after the shot to check the results, most of those of those horses had died back in the wilderness that then gave me opportunities to get paid to go back in that beautiful country.






l be
 
buffybr said:
Yes, for about 30 years I was the Lead Blaster on the Gallatin NF in Montana. Most of my blasting work was blowing up rocks on roads and trails, and teaching blasting classes, but during that time I also blew up 12 horses and one elk.

The reason the Forest Service wanted the dead horses removed was to minimize potential conflicts between grizzly bears and people in the backcontry.

My preferred method of blowing up a horse was to use 1"x8" sticks of dynamite connected with 50 grain Detonating chord and placed under the dead animal.

One time the FS had to put down a horse at one of their backcountry work stations. It was not feasible to get a backhoe in there to bury it, so the Ranger on that district called me. Word got around the staff of the Forest, and the day after I took care of the dead horse, the Forest Supervisor stopped me in the hall and asked me how it went. He also asked me how much dynamite I used. When I told him 30 sticks he looked a little shocked and asked why so much.

When I told him that was so I wouldn't have to pick up the big pieces and shoot him again, he completely understood.

I might have been able to use a fewer number of sticks, but I never had to gather up the pieces and shoot it again.

The one elk that I blew up was a cow that had died not far from a popular camping area on one of the Districts. By the time the District learned of the dead elk and called me, mostly birds had eaten most of the elk as there were more maggots than meat in the elk. One of the District staff officers came with me and I had him use sticks to prop up the body so I could get my charges under it. After the shot there was just a small hole in the ground and the surrounding area was covered with a reddish-brown slime.

One horse that I blew up was lying on the edge of a meadow and it was in the fall of the year. After I set my charges, I backed off the required 500 feet and I took a picture of the blast. That was back before digital cameras and I dropped off the film at a local camera shop to be developed. A couple of days later one of the ladies in the office announced that she was going to that camera shop and asked if any of us had pictures to be picked up, so I asked her to get mine.

When she got back to the office she was looking at my pictures, saw the reddish-brown plume of the explosion in the air and said "That's a pretty fall picture." When I told her that the plume was actually the vaporized horse going up in the air, she just said "Yuck!"

One of the last horses that I blew up had broken a leg in the fall and had to be put down near a main trail in the Absaroka Wilderness. The next spring a grizzly bear had found the carcass and he had charged people on horseback riding on that trail. So the District Ranger called me to get rid of the horse. A couple of District personnel went up there, and when we got to the site, the grizzly was on it. The bear ran off, I set my charges, and after the shot there was no piece of the horse larger than a Big Mack which the bear, coyotes, and birds would clean up in a day or two.

The blasting activites were one part of my job that I really enjoyed and other than the smell while I set the charges under a dead horse and going in after the shot to check the results, most of those of those horses had died back in the wilderness that then gave me opportunities to get paid to go back in that beautiful country.






l be
Click to expand...
Your post alone made it worth me creating this thread. Thanks for sharing your stories! Who knew?!?!?!
 
buffybr said:
Yes, for about 30 years I was the Lead Blaster on the Gallatin NF in Montana. Most of my blasting work was blowing up rocks on roads and trails, and teaching blasting classes, but during that time I also blew up 12 horses and one elk.

The reason the Forest Service wanted the dead horses removed was to minimize potential conflicts between grizzly bears and people in the backcontry.

My preferred method of blowing up a horse was to use 1"x8" sticks of dynamite connected with 50 grain Detonating chord and placed under the dead animal.

One time the FS had to put down a horse at one of their backcountry work stations. It was not feasible to get a backhoe in there to bury it, so the Ranger on that district called me. Word got around the staff of the Forest, and the day after I took care of the dead horse, the Forest Supervisor stopped me in the hall and asked me how it went. He also asked me how much dynamite I used. When I told him 30 sticks he looked a little shocked and asked why so much.

When I told him that was so I wouldn't have to pick up the big pieces and shoot him again, he completely understood.

I might have been able to use a fewer number of sticks, but I never had to gather up the pieces and shoot it again.

The one elk that I blew up was a cow that had died not far from a popular camping area on one of the Districts. By the time the District learned of the dead elk and called me, mostly birds had eaten most of the elk as there were more maggots than meat in the elk. One of the District staff officers came with me and I had him use sticks to prop up the body so I could get my charges under it. After the shot there was just a small hole in the ground and the surrounding area was covered with a reddish-brown slime.

One horse that I blew up was lying on the edge of a meadow and it was in the fall of the year. After I set my charges, I backed off the required 500 feet and I took a picture of the blast. That was back before digital cameras and I dropped off the film at a local camera shop to be developed. A couple of days later one of the ladies in the office announced that she was going to that camera shop and asked if any of us had pictures to be picked up, so I asked her to get mine.

When she got back to the office she was looking at my pictures, saw the reddish-brown plume of the explosion in the air and said "That's a pretty fall picture." When I told her that the plume was actually the vaporized horse going up in the air, she just said "Yuck!"

One of the last horses that I blew up had broken a leg in the fall and had to be put down near a main trail in the Absaroka Wilderness. The next spring a grizzly bear had found the carcass and he had charged people on horseback riding on that trail. So the District Ranger called me to get rid of the horse. A couple of District personnel went up there, and when we got to the site, the grizzly was on it. The bear ran off, I set my charges, and after the shot there was no piece of the horse larger than a Big Mack which the bear, coyotes, and birds would clean up in a day or two.

The blasting activites were one part of my job that I really enjoyed and other than the smell while I set the charges under a dead horse and going in after the shot to check the results, most of those of those horses had died back in the wilderness that then gave me opportunities to get paid to go back in that beautiful country.






l be
Click to expand...
Super cool stories, thanks for taking the time to type that out!!
 
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