Simon says, “Touch your toes.”

Simon says, “Do five jumping jacks.”

Syman says, “Get some chickens, move to Salem, get some goats, rabbits and a cow, and develop an award-winning barbecue sauce.”

And that is what Liz and Aaron Syman did.

Syman Says Farms in Salem is run by Liz Syman, her husband Aaron, and their four children. They started the farm four years in Salem, and today, it is home to half dozen different kinds of animals and an award-winning barbecue sauce.

Liz said her love of farm animals, especially goats, began as a kid in Canton when a family friend had orphaned quadruplets after the mother goat died.

“I volunteered to take the morning bottle, so I’d walk from my house up the hill to the farm, and I fed them, and I immediately fell in love with them,” she said. “I didn’t realize it then, but I realize it now, that’s where it started.”

Liz started with chickens when they were living in Colchester as a way to have fresh eggs for the family. She said she knew she would eventually want goats, too, so they started looking for a new home where they could support a goat herd. Their current property on Buckley Road, less than a mile away from Colchester, Bozrah and Lebanon, fit the bill.

The Symans built their barn shortly after 2-year-old Olivia was born. Show rabbits were added last fall, and a calf named Stewie came to the farm last month.

The farm is currently home to two dogs, two cats, 13 goats, nine rabbits, a meat calf and a “revolving door” of chickens; current estimates are around 200.

One Thursday evening at the farm, Liz watched Aaron make the nightly food and water rounds with their 10-year-old son Jake and 7-year-old son Tyler.

“It’s been such a wonderful thing for the kids to have them grow up with the animals,” she said. “It teaches them so much in responsibility and work ethic that you can’t replace this for anything else.”

In addition to the daily routine of feeding and watering the animals and milking the goats, the kids are involved with chick season every spring, with about 600 baby chickens hatched to sell this year. The hatching process takes about three weeks, raising chicks from the rainbow of eggs produced by the farm’s Silkies, Marans, Orpingtons, Ameraucanas and “olive eggers.”

“It’s a lot of fun,” Liz said. “The kids are good at socializing the chicks and getting them ready for their new homes because a lot of our customers have kids, so them being handled from day one really goes a long way.”

Since a new batch of eggs hatches every week, every Saturday during chick season becomes an informal open house for the farm. As people come to pick up their chicks, they get to visit the farm and check out their other products, including lotion made from the goats’ milk and Aaron’s “Swanky Sauce.”

A fiery blend of smoked habañero peppers, honey and other ingredients that can all be pronounced by Tyler, Swanky Sauce came out of a desire for a natural barbecue sauce that could satisfy the Symans’ love of heat. Aaron, a solutions architect for Verizon by day, first made it to go with his pulled pork at a summer party in 2013.

“If I’m going to spend 12 hours cooking the protein and spend all that time and all that effort, I’m not going to throw a $2 bottle of barbecue sauce on it,” he said. “We put it out with the pulled pork and everybody loved it.”

Swanky Sauce is now bottled in New Haven and distributed to more than 50 stores around the state. Last month, it took the grand champion prize in the Saucekers, a competition dedicated to small-label barbecue sauce producers.

As the summer winds down and they return to class at Winthrop STEM Elementary Magnet School in New London, Jake and Tyler have one last chance to show their goats and rabbits at the Ledyard Fair this weekend.

Breeding will also start in the fall when the weather cools down, and the family will be in for some late nights again once the goats start having their kids in the spring. Liz said during the month of April, she feels sleep deprived because she’s tending to the babies on the farm so often.

Running a farm is hard work, she said, and it’s truly a lifestyle.

“We’ve had heartache here, we’ve had tears. You know, sit in a fetal position with a goat who’s not doing well and pray that she pulls through,” she said. “And that day comes around when she starts eating again, and it’s like watching your own child overcome something.”

Syman Says Farms is located at 279 Buckley Road in Salem, where their farm store is open Saturdays from 10-2 in the spring and by appointment the rest of the year. More information about their animals, Swanky Sauce and other products is available at their website.

a.hutchinson@theday.com