Calder Dairy Farm

On Sunday of Labor Day weekend, the kids and I took a drive up 75 to Calder Dairy Farm in Carleton, Michigan. I'd originally read about it in Toledo Parent back in May as a fun summer activity and just never got around to planning a visit until now. The weekend weather was so crazy with extremes and this day was just overcast with an on-and-off drizzle all day. But we made the best of it!
Will is always fascinated with cows (as he is with all animals) and I knew the big appeal of this place for him would be that visitors get to help feed the baby calves and later watch the cows getting milked. But I had no idea they had tons of other animals too! Another appeal for me was just to check out a real working dairy farm, especially one that uses their own cow's milk to make all sorts of other dairy products, which they sell in their store. The farm has been in business since 1946 and still offers "old-fashioned" home delivery of their milk (packaged in recyclable glass bottles) in addition to the store products. Best of all, they "do not use any artificial hormones to enhance milk production, but rather, rely on healthy feed rations, good management and lots of TLC". The cows are fed a partially grain diet, but do forage the pastures as well. The dairy products they produce include buttermilk, yogurt, whipping cream, ice cream, egg nog, sour cream, cottage cheese, etc. They have 34 flavors of New England style ice cream, which is hand packaged on the farm! So of course, I made sure to tell the kids we'd be tasting some ice cream on our visit as well.

The farm is open to the public seven days a week and, if you come out in the afternoon, the daily calf bottle-feedings are at 3 p.m. and milking of cows at 4 p.m. That required a little bit of juggling with the nap schedule... I put them down for nap around 11:30 to have them up for sure by 2. (It takes us ~48 minutes to drive there.) The adjustment was hard for them and they probably only slept an hour, but this visit was totally worth it. We had so much fun!

Will was SOOOOO excited to feed the baby calf! His face was so curious and excited and happy all at the same time. And he wanted to do it all by himself, even though it was a little heavy and awkward with the calf moving around a little. Sophie was happy to just watch, but very quickly, both kids were walking around in complete confidence around all the animals.

Not sure if I snapped this too soon or too late but his face was a huge smile, like "can you believe this, mama?" :) Love it!

After feeding one of the calves, Will and Sophie walked around and said hello to all the rest. My children think they can speak animal. They were "talking" to each animal in the sound that each animal makes and then laughing about it when the animals responded back to them. Haha.

You can see Will mooing here...

...and a calf mooing back at him.

Don't they look like dog houses?

Another area where some baby calves were hanging out.

Sophie spotted a rooster and was saying "cock-a-doodle-doo" to him.

And then check out her face (and her dashing away from him) when he responded back. Haha!! I think she was a little shocked by how loud he was!

A pot-belly pig rooting around in front of two more calves.

Will is my personal photographer now! ;) I love that he says "okay, I got ya'!" after he takes the picture.

Cows LOVE to stand around in rain puddles apparently.

But others were out grazing.

Pointing out to pasture where more cows were grazing.

More animals! (And more animal sounds from my children...)

LOVE, love the toddler squat.

Sophie was very amused with the wandering goat (above).

Here, she was trying to mimic the goat after he shook his whole body like a wet dog. She was shaking her whole body too!

Pigs are so much cuter when they're little.

Sophie was a little intimidated to walk up to the foal by herself, so Will took her hand and they walked together.

Leaving the horse barn.

The little animal statues were a big hit.

A wooden replication of a milk truck for kids to play on/in.

Inside the farm store, Will picked strawberry ice cream and we all split a big cup full.

Sharing is a big lesson. ;-)

At 4:00 we walked over to the milking room and peered through the streaky window at the cows filing in to be hooked up to the pumps. It's a surprisingly fast process to pump each cow's milk - maybe 3-5 minutes? They're all pretty used to it, so the filing in and out went very smoothly.

This cow greeted Will at the window. :)

If you walk around to the side of the room, you can step part way in and get a much closer view of the pumping process with all the tubing and everything.

And from the opposite side of the room, you can walk out and see the huge group of cows waiting to file in.

Wow!

As you walk down the path alongside the fence, the cows all poke their heads out to greet you.

Will's rubbing a rain drop out of his eye in this picture but I wanted to take his picture next to the John Deere since he's wearing the shirt.

On better weather days, they apparently do hay rides too!

Checking out the ducks on the pond.

These next two are terrible of me but I love them of Soph. Her expressions crack me up! She really wanted to help me hold the umbrella.

LOL

It was starting to rain a little harder (all day it had just been drizzling) as we were finishing up our visit, so we quickly loaded back into the car after a quick wipe down and sanitizer squirt and then it really started pouring on our drive home.

This was such a fun trip. We all really enjoyed it!