Home/Dead Animals: Who Collects in Lafayette

Who Picks Up a Dead Animal in Lafayette Parish?

Checked against Lafayette Consolidated Government, LDWF and Louisiana Department of Health pages on November 7, 2026. How we research this site.

Lafayette Consolidated Government publishes exactly one rule about dead animals: if it is on a public road, call Acadiana Waste Services. Everything off the road, from the back yard to the crawlspace under a raised house, is left to the owner.

Where the animal is decides who comes

The one rule LCG publishes

The instruction sits in the Lafayette Animal Shelter and Care Center’s frequently asked questions, under “Who do I call to help me with a dead animal?” The answer is a single sentence: if it is on a public road, call Acadiana Waste Services at (337) 205-7710. Acadiana Waste Services is also the company LCG names for its weekly bulky-waste collection.

The FAQ does not give hours, a size limit or a response time, and it does not mention a charge. It also does not cover a private yard. If the animal is on your own property, the honest position is that LCG has not published what it will do, so call before you move anything to the roadside.

What the shelter does handle

The shelter describes itself as the municipal animal shelter serving Lafayette Parish. For live animals it is more involved than many southern shelters: it lends traps for wildlife and feral cats, and once an animal is caught an officer comes and collects it. Strays, nuisance animals and cruelty go to the shelter on (337) 291-5644, weekdays 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., with officers on emergency call after hours and at weekends only for dangerous animals and bites. None of that extends to an animal that has already died somewhere inside your house.

Under a raised house or in the attic

Pier and beam houses give animals a dark crawlspace to shelter in, and slab houses push them up into the attic instead. Either way, LDWF points to the most common cause of a smell nobody can find: adults removed in spring or early summer leave young behind in an attic or under a house, and those young die and decay there.

Getting one out usually means locating it first, which under a floor can take a crawl through the whole space or, in a wall, a small inspection opening. Then the carcass comes out, soiled insulation or vapor barrier is removed, and the opening the animal used is found and closed. Louisiana’s rules require a permitted operator who takes wildlife to dispose of it by burial at least four feet deep, by incineration or at a sanitary landfill.

We do not quote a price. Access decides most of it, and nobody can judge access from a phone description.

When the smell will stop

It ends when the carcass dries out or is consumed, and not before. One Extension expert put a small animal at about a week or two. Extension guidance adds that larger animals take longer for exactly that reason. In a closed crawlspace or wall cavity during a Lafayette summer, drying is slow. Deodorizers can take the edge off while you wait. They do not shorten the wait.

Handling it yourself

The Louisiana Department of Health explains that rabies passes through saliva or brain and nerve tissue getting into broken skin or the eyes, nose or mouth. That is the reason for gloves and a shovel rather than bare hands, and for bagging what you pick up.

Do not throw it out if it is a bat found indoors, or if a person or pet touched it or was bitten before it died. Keep it, call your doctor, and call the Office of Public Health’s Infectious Disease Epidemiology Section on its 24-hour number, 800-256-2748. Testing the animal is how rabies is ruled in or out.

Questions people ask

Who do I call about a dead animal on the road in Lafayette?

Lafayette Consolidated Government’s answer is Acadiana Waste Services, on (337) 205-7710, for a dead animal on a public road. That is the only dead-animal instruction LCG publishes.

Will the Lafayette animal shelter pick up a dead animal from my yard?

The shelter does not say that it does. Its own FAQ answers the dead-animal question by sending public-road cases to Acadiana Waste Services and says nothing about yards or houses. Call 311 or (337) 291-8200 and ask before you assume anyone will come.

Something died under my raised house. Who gets it out?

No public agency in Lafayette Parish publishes a service for that. It is a job for a private wildlife or dead-animal removal service, which has to find the carcass in the crawlspace first.

How long does a dead animal smell last?

Nobody can promise a date. An Extension expert told one homeowner a small animal’s odor usually fades within a week or two, and Extension guidance is that a larger animal takes longer, because the smell stops only once the carcass dries out or insects have consumed it.