December 31, 2007--Fair Oaks Farms

Friday we went on a field trip to the Fair Oaks Dairy Farms. We technically are on Christmas break still, but it just worked well for the rest of our co-op to go there on that day. We're studying States and Regions, and we had finished up with the dairy states and had wanted to see a dairy farm. This was the coolest dairy farm I'd ever seen! They have a nature center there that's more like a museum, bus tours, a place where you can watch the cows give birth, and a cheese factory and restaurant. The kids really enjoyed it. This farm has 3500 dairy cows, and they use the methane from the manure to produce their own electricity. They keep things clean and running so smoothy, it's impressive! This is a picture of their rotary milker. They put the cows on this merry-go-round while they milk them. It holds 72 cows and takes eight minutes to go around. They have workers stationed all around the room to do various jobs: one to disinfect and prime the teats, another to attatch the pumps, and one to apply a special soloution to protect the teats when the milking is over. The milk is measured electronically and recorded, and the information is transferred to neckbands the cows wear that record all the information on that cow. They even record the number of steps the cows take, because it helps them know whether or not the cow is in heat or not. The thing I thought was the coolest was the way the cows would get off the rotary milker themselves when it came back around. Cows are creatures of habit, and they know when milking time is over and it's time to get off. It was so neat watching them back out and head down the ramp all on their own.

My favorite part was watching a cow give birth. It took quite awhile, and a lot of pulling on the part of worker, but it was so cool! I didn't think of taking pictures during the actual birth process. I remembered my camera right after the baby had finally been born, and the momma turned around and began to lick her calf.

So that's what we did Friday. Saturday we didn't do much, and Sunday was the last Handel's Messiah concert. I have had a cough and my voice was weak, so I wasn't able to sing my solo, but I managed to get through the rest of it at least.