The Dead Wagon

[Baker, John]

        I was just thinking about the dead wagon of my youth, and I
noticed that there are few attestations of this usage.  A dead wagon, as
we used the term in south-central Kentucky, was a truck (I suppose once
it must have been a wagon), owned by a dog food company, that would
remove freshly dead farm animals in exchange for their meat and hides.
I believe that dead wagons may still be in use.

        I can recall one occasion in the mid-1970s when the dead wagon
came.  One of our mules had fallen, one winter, and could not get back
up.  My father called the Lee Dog Food Co.; I had heard of the dead
wagon before then, but had not previously known that it was owned by a
dog food company.  The dead wagon turned out to be a flatbed truck with
a rack on it, of the type ordinarily used for transporting live animals.
The truck already had a number of dead and dying animals on it.  The
driver walked over to the fallen mule and shot her in the head.  He then
used a winch to pull her on the truck.  She was still alive and looking
at us, though I suppose that death was imminent.

        The dead wagon serves a need in a farming community.  There is
no market for, say, a mule that cannot get up.  Once we had two cows
struck by lightning, making them unfit even for dog food, and we had to
pay to have them buried.  I will say this, though:  Things would have to
get pretty tough before I would eat any dog food.

        Net searches show that "dead wagon," in this sense, is
infrequently used but geographically dispersed.  (As a term for a
vehicle used to pick up a human corpse, a function now usually filled by
a hearse or ambulance, it is somewhat more common.)  An East Ontario
writer posted on 12/30/2004 on
http://www.cattletoday.com/forum/ntopic9180.html:

        <<There is a cost to rendering - in this area it costs 60 bucks
to have the dead wagon haul away a cow and 25 for a calf of any size
under 500 pounds. 25 cents for the bullet - I usually supply the bullet
and the gun.  But, they will do that for you as well if you want - no
charge.>>

        A writer from Harrodsburg, Ky., apparently writing about the
same dog food company (which is located in that area), wrote on
6/11/2004 on
http://www.intruderalert.com/cafe/index.cfm?page=topic&topicID=30671:

        <<I hate to get behind a dead wagon as we call them.The big
trucks hauling the ripe dead cows and horses to dog food plants
:lipsrsealed;On a hot summer nigh you can smell them miles before you
catch and pass them.>>

        And the New Orleans Times-Picayune wrote on 8/19/2003:

        <<In my younger and sprier days, I was lucky enough to be a
racetracker. I have a bit of knowledge about the sport. I do not believe
there is any true fan of racing who would not rather tear up a ticket
than watch the dead wagon haul a horse off.>>


John Baker