Visiting a Farm - Feeding Calves, watching baby Ducklings and Chickens, and More

Hello everyone,

I forgot my camera, but the calves looked like these

As you might know, I am now Unschooled. Along with that I am still taking Beginning Agriculture at the Harrington High school. Well, this morning I went to Agriculture and we had a field trip to a local farm. Once we got there, we got to feed some baby calves their bottles. There were three "crippled cows" that had to be bottle fed. The family that owned the farm waited to feed them so we could help.

One calf had lost its mother, another had a broken leg because its mother had stepped on it, and I can't remember what was wrong with the third cow. I was feeding one of them, which turned out harder (and messier) than planned, but still very fun.

 After that, we got to learn a little bit about the cows and where they are all placed. Along with that, we got to see pictures of what happened when the cows had given birth to their calves during a blizzard and how bad it turned out. The family went out there during the blizzard to find the newborn calves nearly dead. They had to be treated into special rooms and watched carefully that winter.

I forgot my camera, but these are chicken eggs like the ones I saw

We also got to go into the chicken coop where some of us had found eggs. After that, we saw three ducklings that were wondering around, looking for their mother. Something pretty funny happened then.
One of the dogs - the smaller one - started chasing the ducklings. They all scattered and once the dog was stopped, two of the ducklings got back together in a group. But the third one could not find them. So he - or she - wondered up to a nearby chicken and the chicken jumped back. That was, in my opinion, the funny part.

Then we went on to talk about the ducks and chickens. We were told that one year, they got this egg that was jet black. If I remember correctly, it was a duck egg. Then after that they got what was described as a "sort of tie-dye egg" and then brown eggs speckled black. But now they have been only getting white and brown eggs. The average eggs they get for both the chickens and ducks are about 1 egg per day per chicken/duck. But it can be more or less than that. Also, I learned that if you do not wash the eggs, they do not need to be refrigerated due to a special covering that is naturally on the eggs. But if you wash them like most people, that covering is washed away and the eggs need to be refrigerated.

After all of this, we headed back to the bus because second period had already started at school. Of course, I just had to walk home, but everyone else had math to get to. Overall, this field trip was a fun, educational thing I got to do. Plus it was my first time really being around farm animals. Usually I just see them at the petting zoos at fairs. Also, I am sorry that the pictures are not mine. I forgot to get pictures, plus I only had my phone which cannot send photos to my computer. Either way, I hoped you enjoyed this post. Be ready because tomorrow I will have the Portal into the Past - Egypt, Washington Missile Silo with plenty of strange photos I took while there over the weekend.