Lots of dairy farmers use tires to weigh down tarps covering winter feed for their cows, like hay and chopped up corn. Old tires work well for the job because they鈥檙e heavy and often free. But they鈥檙e also a hassle 鈥� tires are hard to move and store, they fill up with dirty water, and can spread disease.
鈥淭hey breed mosquitoes like crazy,鈥� said Patti Casey, who runs a state program to track mosquitoes and ticks.
鈥漈he mosquito species that really like to breed in tires are primary vectors of West Nile virus,鈥� she added.
Last week, Casey led a project with the Vermont Agency of Agriculture to offer farmers some .
The state purchased a tire slicer recently, and at a recent in Barre, they cut up hundreds of tires that would otherwise have gone to a landfill.
Since advertising the tire sidewalls, which farmers can stack in a pile on top of their tarps, they鈥檝e had dozens of calls.
鈥淚 also had a couple text messages and they were like, 'I鈥檇 like 200 of these right now please,'鈥� said Casey. 鈥淪omebody else called and said, 鈥業鈥檒l take all of them.鈥欌��
Casey thinks this batch of tire sidewalls will meet the needs of three or four farmers at smaller operations.
Going forward, she鈥檇 like to lend out the tire cutter to farmers directly, so they can slice up existing tires on site.
鈥淢y goal is to have every farm in Vermont using sidewalls someday,鈥� she said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 kind of a pipe dream, but that would just be amazing.鈥�
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