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A look at what a heat lamp can do to a barn, lambing pen.

Mindy Ward, Editor, Missouri Ruralist

March 8, 2019

7 Slides

After decades of using metal heat lamps during lambing season, this year one caught one of our stalls on fire. The fire was so hot it burned through wood boards and scarred the metal barn on the outside.

While we continue to use the same metal heat lamps that I have used since I was a kid in 4-H, we do triple-check them to make sure they are secured to the pen. We also use two wires as a precaution.

Sheep were inside the barn, but none were injured. In the slideshow you will find a true hero — the ewe who saved her twins.

About the Author(s)

Mindy Ward

Editor, Missouri Ruralist

Mindy resides on a small farm just outside of Holstein, Mo, about 80 miles southwest of St. Louis.

After graduating from the University of Missouri-Columbia with a bachelor’s degree in agricultural journalism, she worked briefly at a public relations firm in Kansas City. Her husband’s career led the couple north to Minnesota.

There, she reported on large-scale production of corn, soybeans, sugar beets, and dairy, as well as, biofuels for The Land. After 10 years, the couple returned to Missouri and she began covering agriculture in the Show-Me State.

“In all my 15 years of writing about agriculture, I have found some of the most progressive thinkers are farmers,” she says. “They are constantly searching for ways to do more with less, improve their land and leave their legacy to the next generation.”

Mindy and her husband, Stacy, together with their daughters, Elisa and Cassidy, operate Showtime Farms in southern Warren County. The family spends a great deal of time caring for and showing Dorset, Oxford and crossbred sheep.

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