SOUTH DEERFIELD — After a horse burial raised neighborhood concerns on Kelleher Drive this summer, town officials were unable to take any direct action to address the matter, as Deerfield lacks bylaws regarding the burial of farm animals.

The burial also raised questions about rules for burying farm animals, given the vast majority of area towns have adopted right-to-farm bylaws.

It turns out Deerfield is not alone in lacking bylaws to address farm animal burials. In reviewing numerous towns’ bylaws in the region, seemingly none of them make any mention of burying animals or farm animal carcasses. Massachusetts’ laws do not appear to address farm animal burial, and domestic pet burial regulations are up to individual municipalities, according to the state’s website.

Instead, communities, as in Deerfield’s case, can defer to the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s UMass Agricultural Extension Service for advice.

Back in June, and at other times this summer, residents David Johnson and Matthew Troxell appeared before the Select Board with health concerns regarding the burial of Martha Price’s horse, Buddy, near the property line she shared with Johnson in late May.

With no regulations to follow, the town reached out to the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection and the UMass Agricultural Extension. At its Aug. 21 meeting, the Select Board issued two letters to Price stating there was no public health threat as a result of the burial, but further consideration should have been taken.

“Although Ms. Price followed many of the UMass guidelines for burying a large animal, she failed to adhere to many others, including respecting the proper distance from neighboring properties, water bodies and wetland resource areas,” one of the letters reads. “There also appears to have been a communication failure between the parties.”

The UMass Extension lays out numerous guidelines for burying livestock or horses on farms, including recommending that composting of dead animals “may be less of a threat than burial or unattended surface dumping” when it comes to protecting groundwater. For burying animals, it states the carcass must be buried no less than 6 feet deep and have a minimum of 30 inches of soil cover, as well as at be least 2 feet above the highest groundwater elevation.

Best management practices note burials must be at least 50 feet from a property line, 500 feet from a residence and more than 100 feet from a stream, lake or pond. Buddy, the town letter states, “may have been buried” within the Bloody Brook’s wetland resource areas and “appears to have been located too close to neighboring properties.”

MassDEP and the UMass Agricultural Extension advised the town that the horse carcass should remain in the ground at this point, due to it being buried for more than two months and there would be a “significant chance of unintentional contamination by unearthing the carcass.”

“They said that since the excavator operator who dug the 6-foot-deep hole stated it was dry, and since the carcass was buried with compost materials and a deep cover of soil in accordance with basic UMass guidelines, they concurred with the DEP advice to leave the carcass buried,” the town’s letter reads. “Since area residents do not use wells for drinking water, they said they saw little risk to public health and safety.”

While the Select Board/Board of Health states there is likely no public health impact from the burial of Buddy, it will “explore the creation of a bylaw and/or regulations concerning farm animal burials” for future cases.