It was great seeing how our milk gets from the field to our fridge. It is so important for young children to get a feel for where their food comes from, because the connection helps them to make healthier food choices.
We learnt about a diary farm where female cows called heifers start producing milk after they have had their first calf. We saw a baby calf being cleaned by her mum, then only thirty minutes later tentatively standing up. We pinched our noses as we watched a slurry of cow dung being stored to spread on the fields of the organic farm to help grow the grass and crops to feed the cattle. We saw the mixture of other crops used to feed the cattle called silage. In the milking parlour we saw the cows first being washed before being milked and discovered that one cow could produce the equivalent of 60 pints a day. We learnt how the tanker collects the milk stored in the bulk tank and takes it to the dairy every day, where it is heated up to kill all the germs to make it safe to drink, before being bottled ready for the supermarket and shop's shelves.
Everyone enjoyed making their own paper plate heifer.