Tour of Redmond Dairy Farm - Pasture and Chickens (part 3/4)

While Quinten and I were waiting at the bathroom, the rest of the family got to see the grass production shed.  Apparently, it only takes 7 days to create the grass that is fed to the cows to keep them healthy and happily producing milk.

The older boys were able to help load some of this grass onto the trailer.  Our hay ride would take us into the cow pasture and where we would get to feed the cows this wonderful grass.

With the grass loaded the group hopped onto the trailer to start the hayride.  This is where Quinten and I caught up with the group.

Our first stop was to visit the cows and drop off the grass feed.  The boys couldn't hardly believe their good fortunes!  The were able to stand up, sit down and move around while the vehicle was in motion!  They didn't even have to wear seat belts.  Since we were the third group to go through the pasture they cows weren't exactly thrilled to see us.  The didn't mind getting the grass but they weren't really hungry either.  But it was still fun to be up close and personal with those cows.

David, Donovan and Michael thought it was great to run behind the trailer and then jump on, after all, we were moving slow enough that everyone could feel safe.  We were lucky, it was someone else's kid who stepped in the cow pie!

From the pasture we headed out to the chicken coupe.  We were able to see were the chickens hang out all day.  The farms collects about 500 eggs per day from these range chickens.

Our boys were lucky enough that they got to personally experience the joy of collecting eggs.  They were allowed in the hen house and were given the task of extracting the eggs while the chickens were still inside.  Each of the boys thought that was pretty fantastic.

Michael was entrusted to safe-guard the eggs all the way back to the farm and was not allowed to let a single egg get broken.  It sounded good but he abandoned his post   The boys decided it was more fun to run along side or behind the trailer rather than ride on it.  It used up some of their youthful energy but it really made the rest of the kids jealous.  The parents didn't know how to tell their kids that they couldn't run along side of the trailer when our boys were.  But since I didn't see the harm it I let my boys run.

Once we returned from the chickens our tour of the farm was concluded.  They had a bucket of salt rock that the boys found.  Michelle was already interested in the salt mine just across the street (dirt road).  So she began to inquire about the salt mine and if we could take a look since we were already there.