Mooooo! Does anybody want some milk?

For the last 3 years of living in the West Valley, I have driven past the same dairy, daily. I finally had the nerve one day to stop and ask if they would do a Dairy Farm tour for our homeschool group.-They readily
agreed and I alerted my group.
I had been on Dairy tours before and been dissappointed frustrated with the lack of teaching that was presented. We were there to learn, Please teach us.
Well, I was so happy to meet Farmer Ben Dickman of Verrado Dairy. I expected a 20 minute tour-yeah, we were there for 2 hours! (with his brain to pick, at our leisure)

Here's our little group starting out.

The first place he took us, was to the cold storage room, where the milk is cooled from body temperature to 40 degrees in a matter of seconds! The kids all took a peek over into the cold tank. They said it was very frothy. A milk truck comes twice a day to pick up all that milk. (this is peak season, summer is slow)

We were also up close and personal with the UDDERS-it was awesome..He told us we could milk them if we wanted- nobody volunteered though! The biggest problem he faces with his cows? Mastitis.
 After milking the udders are dipped in a waxy antibiotic to keep the bacteria out of the teat, while the cow is out in the field. A cow is milked 3 times in a 24 hour period, giving 100 pounds of milk. (Don't ask me why they measure in pounds and not gallons)
Farmer Dickman was so good with the children, answering 100's of questions from curious moms & kids.
Below are the kids, learning about what goes into the cow's feed. Corn, cottonseed, almond husks, ground up donuts (better than going to waste!)

Look closely for sprinkles in the ground donuts! (above)

Our favorite part was definitely the baby cows..so sweet and new. One was even born while we were there!
It was a wonderful trip!!! The best I've had. I learned a lot of useful info.
Cows are on a 21 day cycle, they gestate for 9 months. A veterinarian can palpate at 4 weeks gestation and confirm pregnancy. Twin births account for 8% of births, triplets 2%.
Cows drink 100 gallons of water a day in the summer. Feed is thee #1 cost to a farmer (60%)
If a cow is small in stature, they will order the sperm of a large bull to try and get a balanced calf, thereby perfecting their herd. It is planned to a science!
We wanted to thank the farmer so much for taking hours out of his day to share his knowledge and enlighten the local public, so I put together a thank you basket and cow-sized thank you card for him!

The basket included Snickers, Twix, gum, Trail Mix, Beef Jerky, and Oreo's. (Milk's favorite cookie)
The farmer seemed very shocked, but pleased with the gift. He said, anytime we wanted to come out again, just give him a holler and he'd fit us in...