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SHERBORN, Mass. (WBZ NewsRadio) — Massachusetts residents buy about a million live Christmas trees every year, and they're encouraged by the state's Department of Environmental Protection to repurpose them rather than just tossing the trees away. Farms across the state, including one in Sherborn, say they have a good way to do just that: feed them to the goats.
Kathy Halamka is the executive director of the the Unity Farm Sanctuary in Sherborn and said Christmas trees make for a different, and entertaining snack for the winter months.
"The needles have great Vitamin C and good nutrition and it's entertaining for them. On top of that it's actually an anti-wormer," she said.
Halamka said the farm gets about a hundred trees per year, which gives the goats, sheep and cows more than enough to chew on until spring.
"They will work on one across the day, if we leave it in longer they'll work on the bark," Halamka said.
She said once the trees are chewed through, whatever's left is thrown into the wood chipper and spread on their trails. Unity Farm Sanctuary is far from the only farm offering the service: others in the area include Firefly Fields in Southwick and the Channell Homestead in Hanover.
WBZ's Tim Dunn (@ConsiderMeDunn) reports:
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