Last weekend my 4 year old son and I made a field trip to Fair Oaks Farms located in Fair Oaks Indiana based on a recommendation from Wende Burbridge who is the Assistant Sales Manager with Lakeshore Public Television. Growing up on a farm as a kid, I initially did not want to make the trek as Fair Oaks Indiana is over an hour drive from my hometown of Chesterton Indiana.
So I bit my tongue and made the journey with my son for his entertainment. My son lives a pretty sheltered life here in a small town of roughly 10,000 residents so the whole farm thing was intriguing to him. We don't have many cows in our tiny town of Chesterton.
It was a fun and educational experience for not only my son, but also for myself. Here are some of the interesting facts that we learned:
- 90% of milk cows in the U.S. are of the breed Holsteins (although my son's favorite was the Brown Swiss)
- Cows have a 4-part stomach that facillitates a unique digestive system
- Food goes into 1st & 2nd stomachs without being chewed
- Cows burp up small amount (called cud) and chew again
- After chewing cud thoroughly, goes to 3rd stomach
- Then it passes to 4th stomach where food digestion occurs
- Cows spend 6-1/2 hours a day eating
- It takes 2 days to process her food into milk
- Cows eat roughly 90 pounds of food a day
- Cows drink nearly a bathtub full of water a day
- Cows DO NOT produce milk until they give birth
- Cows are milked for 305 days (10 months) after giving birth
- Cows produce 45 cups of milk in one milking
- Cows produce 135 cups of milk per day
- Cows produce 300,000 cups of milk in a year
Both my son and I enjoyed our day at Fair Oaks Farms and the Lessons Learned from The Udderly Amazing Cow.
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