“Have you ever been to the farm?” Let Sesame Street take you

By Walter Jeffries on November 19th, 2007 at 9:33 am

Fun as the song may be, cows aren't really interested in playing and are so big they might just accidentally step on us. Petting a baby pig has the problem that the pig is likely terrified of the whole process. The piglet's mother may also get rather upset.

The dog that goes bark has a job, guarding livestock. He doesn't appreciate strange people coming around. He's not sure what to do with the screaming children who want to play and just wishes they would go away.

The tractor, while tempting to ride, is dangerous all jokes aside. It kills people each year with rolling, spinning, flailing parts. Fascinating but not toys.

People have the idea that farm animals are something to be petted and picked up but livestock aren't pets. They're not generally socialized to interact that way with people, especially strangers.

Realize that piglets are only piglets for a very short period of time, just a few weeks. They quickly grow to 30 lbs, 50 lbs, 100 lbs and beyond. By six months they're 225 to 250 lbs, have incredibly strong muscles, hard feet and sharp teeth. Even when friendly they can easily accidently harm a child or even an adult. Full size pigs are 400 to 1,000 lbs in size and may well have tusks that are 6" long. Cows are 600 to 1,800 lbs and kick.

Then there is the whole, very real, issue that people coming onto the farm may bring disease with them. Farm animals can get colds and other diseases that people carry.

I want to encourage more urban people to interact with farms and the natural world but these are real problems with simply visiting the farm. I'm not sure what the solution is. Perhaps petting zoos are the answer. They can look like a farm but protect both the people and the animals better. The animals can be kept at ages where they're docile. They can be socialized to people. If they get sick from it isn't going to wipe out some small farmer's livelihood and year's crop.

By Walter Jeffries on November 19th, 2007 at 3:04 pm

I'm sorry! I didn't mean to make you feel like an ass at all. Believe me, I didn't understand many of these things until we had our own farm. As a child I visited our cousins, who had a dairy farm - there I did learn about pigs nipping and cattle & ponies stepping on toes, fortunately not mine! We also visited the 'Friendly Farm' which is a petting zoo in Dublin, NH. They do a very good job of presenting things safely for small children. It wasn't until I had a farm and kids of our own that I realized how much the staff at the Friendly Farm had done to make it safe, educational and enjoyable.

But, you're right, they are not the same as a working farm and it would be good if people could get to know their food better. How to do that is on my mind. We get quite a few people who call asking to come out to the farm to visit. Thus I've been thinking about this. Right now my excuse for saying no is that we're cranking to get the farm ready for winter, finish the cottage so we can move in, etc. But it is fun to have people over. Figuring out how to make it work though is a challenge.

This fall we worked with a CSA in Marshfield, VT. At the end of the year they had a Harvest Festival and that was a great way to do a farm tour. I've wondered about doing something like that someday. We do a micro version right now on a monthly basis. My kids have 'Water War' days where we have a bunch of families over and they go at it with their 'squirt guns' (don't let them know I call their super-soakers that!) in our woods and unoccupied fields. Great fun and then a bonfire. Swimming during the warm months. In the winter it is snowball fights, snow forts, sledding and snowboarding on the south pasture. These are kids who don't farm and some of their parents have commented how great it is to be able to bring their kids to see a 'real' farm. I hadn't thought of it that way until they mentioned it and you reminded me here.

One other thought, there are times when the farm does not look pleasant. Mud season. Even the best tended farm in mud season can be quite a mess! Right now we're coming out of our second mud season of the year - one in the spring, one in the fall. This week past everything was a muddy, muddy mess. Right now it is covered by a fluffy coating of beautiful snow. What a difference a drop in temperature plus some snow makes! :)

So, I want to keep thinking on this whole farm visiting thing and how can we help people reconnect with the ruralness, the land and with farms.

By Venusia on November 20th, 2007 at 11:42 am

Here in Montreal, there is an educational working farm that is self-funded, though owned by the City. It is a reinsertion program for youth who have started going down the wrong path and want to turn their life around. They grow organic crops which they sell through their CSA program, raise the animals, produce maple syrup and do a good business running tours for schools. I've been many times with my children. The most wonderful time is in the spring, when the baby goats are born and roam freely around the barn, and of course also in March when you can go on sleigh rides and get maple taffy on snow.
http://www.d3pierres.com/content.asp?node=5&lang=en

By Sara on November 24th, 2007 at 7:19 am

Walter brings up some interesting points: If one is really making a living off one's farm, the animals on the farm, with few exceptions, all have a job to do. Because we treat our animals humanely and with respect, our beef cows are more accessible than typical, but they are still mamas whose main job is to raise (and protect) their calf.

One of my favorite parts about farmer's markets is consumer outreach and education. I think the general populace' disconnection with food has people believing farms are idyllic, laid-back places where all the animals are really just big pets. Everyone on a successful farm (animals and people) works hard. Somewhere between Sesame Street and The Meatrix lies the real world.

By ExPat Chef on November 26th, 2007 at 9:43 am

The cow one is on our DVD set. It nearly made me cry when I saw it (again). There was such reverence in the song "Oh, cow ..." and the sight of the animals on the grass and farmer walking alongside the cow. At the farmstead (a petting zoo and educational center for kids where I live) a large dairy sponsors the dairy barn. Their film shows how "great" it is that hundreds of cows can now be milked at once on a big carousel!!! The cows look like all but cogs on a machine. The antibiotics, drugs, lack of access to pasture, all the modern dairy issues. How much of that simple reverence we have lost in the last 40 years. What a change that has been. Yep, I nearly cry when I watch those old videos.