We went to Aullwood Farm in Englewood for a program called Udder Delight! Our teacher, Miss Tara taught us 5 things that an animal must have in order for it to be a mammal.
1. have hair
2. have vertebrae (spine)
3. give birth to live young (no egg-layers!)
4. have mammary glands (feed their young milk)
5. warm-blooded
Then, the students put their knowledge to the test by deciding if each stuffed animal was a "mammal" or "not a mammal".
We practiced the correct way to milk a cow.
We learned that it would take 365 squirts to get enough milk to fill a gallon-sized jug! Talk about tired hands! We saw the machines that are hooked up to the cows to make the milking a lot quicker.
Next, we put heavy whipping cream into a jar, shook it for a couple minutes (quite vigorously!), and ended up with freshly made butter!
We tried some on crackers! It was delicious!
We learned that cows have four stomachs! That's right, FOUR! Miss Tara showed us what each one looks like and the purpose of each one. She said that when cows eat grass, they chew it, swallow it, burp it back up as cud so they can re-chew it and swallow it again before it moves onto the next stomach. They spend eight hours a day chewing cud!
We went out to the barn and saw some of the newest members of the Aullwood family. The goats were between one and two weeks old!
We got to see the mama cow feeding her calf!
We also met *huge* Belgian draft horses that they use to pull a cart.
We also got to see and pet the sheep that were from Mr. Brisco's farm!
We saw 4 turkeys--the male puffs up his feathers to make himself look bigger in order to protect the female turkeys!
The Spring House is what used to be the refrigerator before there was electricity. The water from underground kept the room cool so foods wouldn't spoil.
The water was cold!
Miss Tara said that the idea for velcro came from the burrs from this plant. How cool!
We passed the talking stick around the circle and said something we learned or our favorite part.
We only had a few minutes at the end, but the kids loved running around the sand hill!
When we got back to school, we wrote about our day!
