A Day at the Ranch

Whilst my post title is a bit of an exaggeration-- because I really only spend a few hours at a cattle and swine farm then sat down for a proper lunch, the trip was a lot of fun and my boyfriend and I came back stinking like pigs. Literally.

So what did we see? First we went to a cattle farm where the cattle are used to produce milk and grown for meat. No, the cattle are not slaughtered on the farm, it's more of a breeding farm. First we went to a milking machine that can milk 10 cows at once. I got to try some fresh milk, which being from the US, I had never done. Delicious. Next, we checked out some stats about the cows: how much milk each one produced, weight, etc. After this we went and saw the cows, the calfs and then the bulls. We learned that the bulls are used for meat whilst the cows are not.

Next, we drove to the pig farm where it really, REALLY, smelled. Horrible. My boyfriend and I got wrapped up in some things that were supposed to keep the smell out but it didn't really work. Haha. Still, it was interesting. We got to see a pig that had just given birth to 18 piglets earlier in the morning. We learned that the pigs are castrated at about 5 months because otherwise hormones make the meat smell and therefore less desireable. Apparently they do not do this in the UK.













And no, that's not my hand! Happy New Year.