Top U.S. cattle feeding companies sent 1,000-pound carcasses to a Kansas landfill, where they were flattened by loader machines and mixed with trash, after a June heatwave killed thousands of cows, documents seen by Reuters show.

Other cattle were buried in unlined graves, a feeding company said.

Neither is a typical method for disposing of bodies. But so many cows died in the unusual heat and humidity that facilities that normally convert carcasses into pet food and fertilizer products were overwhelmed, prompting the state government and cattle feeders to take emergency measures. read more

The mass deaths and subsequent scramble to deal with decaying bodies sparked a push for changes in the meat industry in Kansas, the third-largest U.S. cattle state.

Kansas is forecast to see more high temperatures that can stress and potentially kill cattle this summer, adding to the myriad problems caused by increasingly extreme weather linked to climate change.

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