home cremation for a budgie

[smallgreenfury]

TW: death, cremation

My precious little budgie died the other day. For various reasons (sentiment, ceremony, bad past experiences with professional cremation, lack of money) I wish to cremate her on my own. I have seen videos and read some articles of people who have done small pet cremation at home in their yards. I know it is possible under the correct conditions. Does anyone here have experience with this they can share?

 

[chris-md]

None here but bumping up for you. I doubt you’ll find anyone going this far. I know in your place id just do burial.

 

[smallgreenfury]

None here but bumping up for you. I doubt you’ll find anyone going this far. I know in your place id just do burial.

Thank you for the bump. I wish I could do burial but I rent and move often. So I take all my budgies ashes with me and they always have an altar together by a window. We flock forever.

 

[clark_conure]

Do whatever you want to do. If this makes you feel closer then do that. You're honoring the bird you loved. I own a house and planted a bush with my first GCC clark and years later buried her under it. You and your bird had a bond no one can judge. You can decide the best way to honor them.

Do what feels best to you, to honor the memory.

I'd get a tin or a pan...able to collect all the ashes. Get a nice container.

 

[smallgreenfury]

TW: death, cremation

My precious little budgie died the other day. For various reasons (sentiment, ceremony, bad past experiences with professional cremation, lack of money) I wish to cremate her on my own. I have seen videos and read some articles of people who have done small pet cremation at home in their yards. I know it is possible under the correct conditions. Does anyone here have experience with this they can share?

Replying to this for anyone who searches for something similar in the future. This actually wasn't very difficult to do. I do work with metal though so have prior experience in this sort of thing. I built a basic charcoal pit forge in a grill on top of the bottom grate. I made a rectangular container for the charcoal out of fire bricks (regular bricks can't stand high temps) and used a black iron pipe propped against the side of the grill between a couple more bricks to get air under the fire (steel pipes with coatings can release chemicals when burned). Once I got the coals going good and hot I used a hairdryer for airflow. While you can use a leaf blower or shop vac on blow setting this amount of air seemed sufficient for this small a pit. I then placed a small flower pot with my budgie inside upside down on a flower pot base. I then put an even larger pot upside down on top of this. These pots I propped up over the hottest part of the coals on the edges of the bricks.

The whole process took about an hour to an hour and a half. Set up was fast but waiting for the coals to get hot and the pots to fully heat up were the longest parts.

I will say, don't do this if you're squeamish around bones or dead animals. If the fire doesn't get hot enough I imagine you could find an unpleasant surprise at the end. If you do it correctly you will still have some charred bones to deal with. This is the case with professional cremation as well. They grind up the bones in a tumbler sort of machine until it more closely resembles ash. I personally found the charred bones beautiful - a sort of glistening black. And I decided not to crush them.

Overall I found this really gratifying as I was able to see the smoke as my budgie took her final flight to the heavens, right outside her favorite window. I also can be sure that I have my own birds ashes whereas some pet funeral places can tend to mix ashes of other animals or, in rare occurrences, give you the wrong ashes. And, I was with her throughout the process instead of some stranger. She now rests with the ashes of her previous flock members, awaiting the urn I've ordered her.

 

[texsize]

I thought this to be a nearly impossible task to do at home.
This sounds like a very workable solution.
I have buried pet cats and other mammals but I just can’t see burring a bird, they just don’t belong underground