TOWN OF OSBORN, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – They say finding a needle in a haystack is tough. How about finding nails in a hay field meant to feed your cows?
“Lots of little shingles with nails sticking straight up out of the shingle,” described Dan Baumgartner, an organic farmer in Outagamie County. “It’s a headache that I did not expect.”
Those nail-filled shingles came from Baumgartner’s barn roof during last month’s storms and spread across his 35-acre field.
“I’m really concerned about that with driving machinery when I do take the crop off. I’m expecting to have a lot of flat tires.”
He’s also hesitant about feeding the crop to his 60 dairy cows.
“I don’t want them to take in any kind of nails or anything like that in their guts because I don’t want the cows to puncture something.”
“It can cause some serious problems, and you could have herd loss as a result,” said Kevin Jarek, a crops and soils agent for UW-Extension Outagamie County.
Jarek has been helping farmers deal with the aftermath of the storms. He says feed loss is only behind structure loss for what farmers are now trying to recover through insurance. Jarek tells FOX 11 the money will only go so far for rebuilding.
“It’s not enough, given the increased costs that we’ve seen since COVID has occurred, to build these structures back to the way they were prior to this incident.”
Baumgartner says the plan was to expand by adding chickens and beef cattle to the barn that is now missing most of its roof. Now, Baumgartner waits to hear from insurance to see if he’ll still be able to make those plans happen.
Baumgartner says the tornado likely set him back about 10 days from his normal work.
If he can’t use the hay crop to feed his cows, he estimates he will have lost 40 to 50 tons at a price of at least $200 a ton.
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