The Barnyard In Winter––

Life Goes On Under The Cover Of Snow

By Dottie Evans

You would think not much is happening these days down at Shortt’s Organic Farm and Nursery off Riverside Road in Sandy Hook.

After all, it is the dead of winter, so there is no need to plant, weed, haul topsoil, lay down straw and plastic, stake tomatoes, set hoses, or tie up string beans. So the farmer, Jim Shortt, and his wife, Sue Stratton Shortt, ought to be enjoying a restful couple of months at home by their fire with their feet up, reading seed catalogs and sipping tea.

But a recent visit to the Shortt Farm after a January snowfall was sufficient to put this myth to rest, because for farmers who keep animals, there can be no rest. Especially if they care about them, and want them to survive the long winter in good shape.

Interrupted in the middle of morning chores, which included tinkering with a cranky starter under the hood of his blue pickup truck, Mr Shortt was happy to lead a visitor around his snowbound farm.

“The Koi [fish] are the easiest. They’re asleep for the winter under the ice. I guess you could say hibernating. But I have to keep a little pump going all the time to get oxygen in and let the gases out.”

Otherwise, it seems they would suffocate. Jim Shortt has kept Koi for years as pets and has just put in a second pond so he ought to know.

“And we just got three new rabbits!” Mr Shortt said happily, striding through the snow toward a large, rectangular structure. (In the dead of winter, one decides to buy rabbits?)

“They don’t mind the cold,” he said, lifting up a snow-covered tarpaulin and exposing three separate, straw-filled cages and three lively bunnies.

They cannot all be together in one cage, he said, because the males might not get along –– or they would get along too well with the one female. The most difficult part of keeping rabbits outside in the winter, besides feeding them twice a day, is preventing their water from freezing.

“I have to bring water from the house, and it freezes pretty soon anyway.”

The Shortts’ 5-year-old emu named Jill seems well-suited to Connecticut winters. She has her own fenced pen, and spends most of the time outside lying under the bushes, covered with snow. Only her head and neck can be seen sticking out.

“Of course, she gets up and comes to the gate to be fed, but otherwise, she keeps pretty much to herself.”

There is not much to say about the 100 laying hens that the Shortts keep in the heated poultry barn except that they are healthy and doing what hens do. They seemed to have slowed down production a bit in the late summer and fall, but now they are providing plenty of eggs for family, friends, and customers who come by on Saturdays to pick them up.

Two chickens have been isolated, however, and are being cared for in the back of another pickup truck parked inside the garage.

“The orange rooster was getting pecked and hassled to death. He kept losing his feathers and was just getting really droopy and going downhill fast. I put him out here so he could recover before spring when he can rejoin the hens in the barn. This black hen has a cough, so she’s out here for observation.”

After the tour, Mr Shortt went back to tinkering with the troublesome starter and then took off to plow the entrance road for what must seem the umpteenth time this winter.

“People need to get in on Saturdays,” he said. And, of course, the animals need daily attention.

Does he ever have time to think about what next summer might bring?

“Sure. As a matter of fact, we’re having our First Annual Meeting of the Sandy Hook Organic Farmers Market vendors this week, just to talk about plans. It was a great first year, and we want to do even more next summer.”

When the snow melts.