07/28/12

This post may not be for the "squeamish".... lol. You'll understand as you keep reading. Just know it all has to do with agriculture and how I grew up. :)

Last week I took an Agriculture in the Classroom workshop for Continuing Ed. It was one of the best workshops I have ever attended. Not only did I get a lot of useful information for my classroom, we also toured the NC State Farms!!

Our first stop was the beef cattle, but they were too far away for us to see at the time so we got to see some chickens and rabbits they had in mobile coups/pens to experiment with how you could use them easily in your yard or at school. I loved seeing the bunnies but I couldn't get good pictures of them through the wiring without one moving often.

Here are the chickens. :)

Next, we went to the Dairy Farm across the road.... and I felt so at home there!! I loved seeing the cows and hearing them moo.

This cute heifer was too adorable. She is a Jersey milk cow.

Here are some Holsteins eating their grain.

We got to go in the milking parlor, too. It looked the same, but a lot different at the same time, than the one we had as I was on the farm.

The milkers still look the same for the most part, but now everything is computerized. The cows wear a collar on which is a computerized box that has all of their information. When they go to be milked, they rest their necks on a mat that then takes the information and puts it in front of the farmer to see how much milk she normally gives, when she comes in heat, etc... Pretty awesome stuff.

We also got to go see the Hog Farm. Here are some of my fellow teachers putting on their "throw away" boots..... We all looked good.

Here is a piglet that had been born a couple of hours before we arrived.

And here is where it might get a little uncomfortable for some of you.... the birthing of a pig. :)

This was a first time Momma Pig so the manager of the barn had to help her out. I saw my Daddy do this many a day at our farm with the cows.

She put on a reallllly long glove, and, well.... I'll let the pictures tell you the rest...

There is the new piglet! :)

Just born!

The sow actually had 13 babies in her, but only 6 survived. Seven of them were "mummies" which means they did not fully develop and were still in her, but were small and not fully formed. I didn't realize there was anything other than live birth and stillborn so I learned quite a bit!

We found it funny that our Ag in the Classroom instructors were a bit squeamish watching this and even asked if the sow had been able to have an epidural. hahaa!! It was wonderful watching another little miracle of God.

Later that day we went back to our workshop area and did more fun stuff. We all laughed and made stuff, and overall had a great time together. We don't usually get to do a lot of this during the school year because we are so busy. It was a wonderful two days of being with fellow friends/co-workers.

I thought I may need to show that I was actually AT the workshop so here is proof. (With my silly friends...)