March 19, 2024

Education at the field day

What do children and cows have in common?

The need for health care and nutrition. Joel Allison and Deron Shawley with the Farmers Cooperative are experts on animal care and nutrition. Again, this year they participated in the annual third grade field day at Clarke County Fairgrounds.

They discussed a cow’s daily needs to keep them healthy and what they like to eat, passing around packages of samples of animal feeds and explained their ingredients. Cows like sweets like children do, so they add molasses to some of their feed.

Just like third-graders who need shots occasionally, so do animals. Some shots are for immediate needs to make a cow feel better, and some are for long term needs, such as vaccines.

Vaccines need to be absorbed and are given just under the skin, whereas antibiotics that need to get a cow over an illness need to be moved faster into the system are given in the muscle.

Shawley showed how to give a shot by using a banana and blue food coloring. The third-graders were riveted to the visual.

A thank you is given to Osceola Farmers Coop for sending Joel and Deron to the third grade field day.