LONE ROCK, Wis. — Winter is coming and farmers like Holly Poad have been thinking long and hard about protecting their livestock.
She wanted to do something for her most vulnerable - the newborn calves that are tossed into the cold weather without any sort of preparation. Sure, cows have survived for thousands of years, but Poad said she wanted to make the transition into real life a little more comfortable.
So it started with a little idea, in Poad's aunt's embroidery shop in Lone Rock, Wisconsin.
"I do custom embroidery and a little bit of odds and ends stuff," Kim Ewers said. Her shop is on the second floor and is filled with machines that have dozens of spools of thread sitting on them.
Poad, knowing her aunt could sew asked for a little favor a few years back. Something to keep the calves' ears warm, especially when they're brand new.
"You walk outside and if you're chilly you put a hat on, you feel substantially warmer," Poad said, drawing a comparison. Except her idea wasn't for people.
"I pulled a calf," she recalled. "And we have like this hoop building and I had it bedded down in there. It was in there and I had it out of the wind and the cow's licking it off. I left it for like 30 minutes and the tips of its ears were already nipped a little bit."
The cold rural Wisconsin temperatures and winds weren't kind to a newborn's ears. Poad said her actual barn burned down in January of 2016 so her calves had to stay outside, under the hoop building.
"It was cheaper than building a barn so I bought calf jackets to keep them warm and we put these on their ears," she said, holding up a fleece headband with two ear pockets and a muzzle strap. "Really once their extremities are covered up we bed them down in corn fodder bedding."
She was winter-ready with her new and improved gadget. She said she had previously seen a pair like hers before but the fleece had been stretched out from use and was too loose on her calves. She decided she and Kim would make a better version, a water resistant one that was lined with fleece with adjustable straps. She decided to call them Moo Muffs.
"We thought this last January, when the talk of the cold was coming, we thought we'd put some on Facebook for people maybe in the same situation as we are in," Poad said.
Ever since that post, Moo Muffs have grown exponentially. So much that Poad said she couldn't keep up with the demand by just hand making them. She is currently in talks with a Milwaukee company to manufacture the Moo Muffs at a faster rate.
Part of the Moo Muffs' popularity may be due to the fact that baby cows in baby earmuffs look so darn cute.
Poad said she is proud to serve up Wisconsin-made products nationwide to those who care about the well-being of their animals.
"It's neat you know and it's cool that people are using them," she said. "They really are practical. We weren't trying to make calves cute. We were doing it for the practicality of it."
Winter is just around the corner and Poad said it's nice to be prepared for it, knowing that her little ones will be warm and cozy.
Moo Muffs currently retail for $20 each, you can place your order by messaging Holly Poad on the Moo Muffs Facebook page.