Welcome to ABC’s of the farm!
Each week we will go through the alphabet and learn about our top 2-3 most important things on the farm!
LETTER B
1) BARN
I am sure everyone has seen a barn at some point either on the farm or just while driving along the road. Our barns may look a little different than the typical red barn, but they all serve the same purpose. That purpose is to provide a safe, clean, happy home for our animals and or farm equipment. We have a barn right behind the farm store, and if you have ever been to it then you’ll probably have heard the goat’s making noises or saw the barn cats running inside. We call the barn behind the store the cat barn and catch all! It houses our over 60 rescue barn cats, provides them shelter where they can come have a snack, drink, or lay in one of the warm comfy beds. It also is storage for our laying hen chickens food, houses some of the petting zoo animals, as well as houses bottle baby animals when we have them. We have lots of other barns all around the farm, some of which house the beef cattle and their calves, the sheep, milking goats and the pigs! We don’t let many visitors into our barns because it can stress our animals out when someone new comes into their safe space, but also poses a huge biosecurity risk in bringing in new germs. Making sure that the BARNS stay bedded with dry straw and protected from the wind is our top priority in making sure our animals all stay healthy and happy all year round!!
2) BALES or BALE OF HAY
Ever wonder what those big white marshmallow looking things are that are sitting all around the farm?? I know they look fun to jump, run and play on at the bale maze but they serve a much more important job too. Those are plastic wrapped bales of hay to feed the animals over the winter. They get stockpiled the most over the summer as we make hay at multiple other farms, haul them home and wrap them with a special bale wrapper that makes them look like marshmallows!
WHY do they get wrapped in plastic?
First things first the plastic wrap acts as a protector, so they don’t get wet, moldy and ruined! Some of the bales of hay we make are dry, so if they did not get wrapped the rain, snow and mud would ruin them and make them taste super yucky for the animals! Although sometimes we make wet bales of hay which is when we bale the grass before it has fully dried. It makes for a heavier bale, but also helps us turn it into baleage once it is wrapped in plastic. The plastic will block oxygen from entering the bale, which will keep mold from forming, and will allow the bale to ferment and turn into what we call baleage! Baleage is higher in protein, and often times sweeter for the cows so it is a nice change for them! Only certain animals can eat fermented hay and feed so we must be careful who we feed it too at the farm! The sheep and goats must only eat dry hay, or they can get sick! So each row of white marshmallow bales gets labeled and we know exactly which kind of hay it is!
