Florida, private property
Dead Animal in a Yard or on Open Ground
An animal on open ground on your own property is the ordinary case, and in most Florida counties it is yours to arrange. It is also the case where a free public service is most likely to exist, so this page starts there rather than with a sales pitch.
Before you pay anyone. Before you hire anyone, check three things. Whether your city runs a pickup at all, because a handful do and they do not advertise it well. How far the animal is from the street, because Jacksonville decides by distance rather than by ownership and fifty feet covers a lot of front lawns. And whether the animal is actually on your land rather than in the swale, the verge or the right of way, because that strip you mow is often the city's for this purpose.
What this covers
- An animal lying in the open on grass, gravel, paving or mulch
- A driveway, carport, side yard or fence line
- Inside a screen enclosure or pool cage, where nothing has to be dismantled to reach it
- A carcass that has been there long enough to attract flies and is no longer something you want to handle
- A larger animal that is simply too heavy to move: a dog, a hog, or in the northern counties a deer
Where the limit is
Anything that has gone under a structure or into one. If the animal is under the house, under a deck, in a crawl space, in a soffit or in a wall, that is a different job and the access question changes everything about it.
Large animals are a small share of Florida calls compared with the northern states, but they are the ones with the fewest public options. Most county services that exist at all are scoped to domestic animals, and the City of Tampa's ordinance caps its service at twenty-four inches at the shoulder and fifty pounds. Above that, on private ground, there is generally no published public route anywhere in Florida.
How a call goes
- Tell us where it is, roughly what size, and how long it has been there.
- If it sounds like a public-property or a free-service case, we say so and point you at the agency instead. That happens on a fair number of these calls.
- If it is genuinely yours to arrange, we check whether an independent operator is available for the address. Nobody's coverage is confirmed in Florida yet, so that is settled on the call rather than promised here.
- The operator handles the removal, the disposal and the ground where the animal was lying, and prices the job with you directly.
Questions about this situation
Who is responsible for a dead animal in my yard in Florida?
In most of the counties we have read, you are. Miami-Dade states plainly that owners are responsible for removing dead animals from private property. Fort Myers says its employees are not allowed on private property. Collier County says it cannot remove deceased animals from private property or within any development or community. There are real exceptions, though, and the county pages on this site name them.
It is in the strip between the sidewalk and the road. Is that mine?
Often not, for this purpose, and it is worth checking because it can be the difference between free and paid. Hollywood's Public Works page covers removal of dead animals from City right of way or swales, and puts private property on the owner. Several Florida cities draw the same line.
Do I have to do anything before someone comes?
No, and you do not need to move it. If you would rather cover it, something weighted like an upturned bin or a board keeps other animals off it. Keep pets and children well away from it, and do not pick it up without gloves.
What decides the price?
There is no figure on this site, because there is no Florida operator whose prices we could honestly publish. What moves the price is the size of the animal, how far it is from where a vehicle can park, how long it has been there and how it has to be disposed of. That is settled on the call, before anyone sets out.
Not sure this is the right page? Who removes a dead animal in Florida works through the public and private split, and the county pages give the published position where you live.