By Robin Lyons / Full360 Media Producer

Down a dirt path by the farms, nestled in the mouth of the woods, lies a massive pile of dirt. Poking through the surface, you’ll sometimes find bones – femurs and shins and jaws, all parts of large animals. It’s a popular spot among the morbidly curious and a few self-described bone hunters of the campus community. But beside rumors, few seem to have a solid grasp on how exactly the bone pile came to be.

The Full360 student media reached out to Broc Sandelin, our Dean of Agriculture, in a virtual interview for his thoughts on the matter.

REPORTER: “First off, hello! How are you?”

SANDELIN: “I’m doing great, living life!”

REPORTER: “Can you give us a brief overview of who you are and what you do at DelVal?”

SANDELIN: “I’m a dean of agriculture and environmental sciences. I’m responsible for all the farm operations on campus and our two satellite campuses.”

REPORTER: “Let’s cut to the chase: the bone pile, what do you know about it?”

SANDELIN: “The bone pile is actually a compost pile. We compost our deceased animals on the farm. Whether by disease or natural causes, it’s an economic process. We then spread that compost on our farms for our fertilizer.”

REPORTER: “Can you give me a detailed process on composting? When an animal dies, what exact steps do you take to transport it and then compost it? What materials do you use? What exact actions do you take?”

SANDELIN: “As far as a detailed process, it really is not very detailed!  When an animal dies, we place it up in that area and be sure it is covered with enough material to start the composting/breakdown of the tissue.”

REPORTER: “Next, why compost over anything else? You mentioned that it’s economic, and that is true. But do you have any sort of more philosophical reason? Do you find it to be humane, or a sort of spiritually enriching idea, to have the animals “return to the earth” in a way? I know I do, but I’d like to hear from you.”

SANDELIN: “Where we are located this is really our only option for handling deceased animals on campus. I personally do not have any philosophical reasons for doing it this way-I am a very pragmatic individual and this is simply just the best solution for our situation. It does, however, provide nutrients back into the soil, so it helps with this aspect as well.”

The bone pile is no mysterious macabre construction; it is simply a compost pile, an economic way to process the corpse of a farm animal that has passed away. A current farmhand who was recently a student at DelVal, named Marie, weighed in on the composting process.

“When an animal dies at one of our facilities it is either by natural causes or was euthanized by a vet for good and ethical reasoning,” she said.

“When a cow dies, the first thing we do is go up to the compost pile and create a “bed” for the cow that is at least 5 feet in depth, and compacted down, so that the body can decompose evenly. We then move the carcass to the pre-made ‘bed.’”

She said the facility has a large skid loader bucket attachment “that can hold an adult cow perfectly, so no parts of the cow are dragging on the ground and all of the bodily fluids can be contained while transporting the animal.”

Workers then unload the animal on top of the bed and cover the cow completely with manure, deep enough that wildlife can’t get to it/dig it out. They also compact the manure down once more. After the cow is buried, employees visit the pile to make sure that the cow is still covered as time passes to maintain the decomposing process.

Marie said that the process is beneficial for environmental and financial reasons.

“I believe that it is a great thing for us to have a compost pile on the campus, even more so because we have so many working farms that all need a place to compost their animals as well,” she said.

From a financial aspect, Marie claims, it is cheaper to do your own composting. The transportation cost and fees for using another composting would make it more expensive; not to mention, the nearest composting site being over an hour and a half away from DelVal. It also allows the farm to use up excess manure.

“By being raised on a dairy farm myself, the idea of composting is not a new topic of conversation for me and is something I knew as very common for farms to have. Because of understanding the circle of life at such a young age when it comes to production animals, it is easy for me to understand and accept this process but can see how others would be against the idea,” said Marie.

Farmhands are not the only ones who interact with the compost pile. Many students have stumbled across it or have heard about it through word of mouth, and some like to collect bones provided by the composting process. Sandelin had some words for this:

“I’d rather them not take bones. I’d rather them leave it where it is.”

It’s difficult to stop students from picking up a souvenir from the pile. But why do people do this? What do they see in it? While our Dean of Agriculture may see the compost pile through a pragmatic lens only, we spoke with bone collector Five Johnson to get her thoughts.

REPORTER: “Have you collected bones from the compost/bone pile? If so, why?”

FIVE JOHNSON: “I have collected a bone from the pile! At home I have a huge collection of bones from all the woods I’ve visited. I’m a big fan of collecting and my bone collection is something especially special to me. I mainly collect skulls. It feels almost spiritual to me in the sense of this was a living thing that had its very own story, now it’s just an object. The bones retain a feeling of personhood to me, so I treat them with some measure of respect.”

REPORTER: “What did you collect?”

JOHNSON: “I collected a cow (or maybe horse I have no idea actually) skull which smells terrible. (Because you know, compost)”

REPORTER: “Broc Sandelin prefers if people do not visit the pile and tamper with it and take bones out. How do you feel about this?”

JOHNSON: “I don’t see the problem in people pilfering a little from the pile. As long as no one’s doing a full scale excavation I don’t see the harm in it.”

REPORTER: “Is there any inherent danger to visiting the bone pile? Do you worry about disease or ticks or anything?”

JOHNSON: “I suppose there is some danger that anyone going has to accept. It is a compost pile so it is full of rot. I feel that anytime you go outside there is a risk of ticks. Personally I wear tall boots and always check myself after wandering the wilds. So far, no Lyme’s disease.”

We concluded the interview with this question.

REPORTER: Do you think the concept of composting deceased farm animals is negative or positive? If so, why?

In the words of Johnson,

“I think it’s a positive thing. These animals are going to die and be recycled anyway. There’s no reason to beat around the bush with that sort of thing. Every living thing will be recycled and that’s a good thing. Circle of life baby.”