CALEDONIA, Wis. — With the holidays now over, some Wisconsinites delivered their Christmas trees to Crimson Acres Family Farm to feed their goats.

Jennifer Linehan owns the farm with her husband. They took over the farm a year and a half ago and wanted to find innovative ways to take care of their animals.

Linehan said the idea to feed the goats Christmas trees came from her husband’s discovery that they actually like to munch on them.

“There’s some vitamins that they can actually gain from that,” Linehan said. “Now these Christmas trees and/or pine trees or a very rich additive to their diet, so they still need to be supplemented with hay.”

From local retailers to residents, the Crimson Acres Family Farm received a lot of Christmas trees quickly.

“The stack of trees are probably about five feet tall here, just layered one on top of the other so they will certainly be well-digested by the goats,” said Linehan.

Linehan believes it will take a few months for the goats to finish off the trees. As she rounded up the goats, she said she knows they are thankful for the extra food.

“Our goats are quite spoiled with it,” she said. “You can see some of the Christmas trees are pretty torn off of the branches and all of the pines are gone, so they work those down.”

Linehan said getting the Christmas trees was not only about feeding their goats.

“We’ll burn the branches in spring and have barn fires for the family to enjoy and talk about all of our experiences because, for the kids, this has been quite enriching in their life to learn about farming,” said Linehan.

While the goats eat, Linehan is happy that they can help the community quickly get rid of their Christmas trees while also helping animals on their farm.

Crimson acres family farm is also sponsoring a program called LUV-A-CHIC.

This gives families an opportunity to raise baby chickens for a few weeks before they live the rest of their lives out on the farm.

“Not only do you get to learn some basic skills of taking care of the animals, making sure they have their feed, their water, but you get to see them grow and also appreciate all of the effort that goes into raising up a chicken to then give you an egg that you will consume,” said Linehan.

To learn more about the program, click here.