The PA Farm Show...It's Not Just For Farmers {Family Fun}

Every January since Zip was born, we've gone to the Pennsylvania Farm Show. Okay, well not every year. There was the one year I was home with a superdy-duperdy newborn - as in, just a few days old newborn - so we understandably missed Farm Show 2010. But other than that, it is an annual tradition in our house. I'm not lying when I say that my kids start asking about the Farm Show in July.

Here is Zip at 2 1/2 petting cows and having a milkshake for lunch, because that is what one does at the Farm Show. He was an old pro by this point. 
Here is Bee at his first Farm Show, checking out the turkeys. My kids can spend a good hour just walking around looking at birds. And the incubator where the baby chicks are hatching? Forget about it. It is all we can do to keep Zip from getting lost in the crowds as he hunts down that incubator.
All this is to say that when I had the opportunity to attend a "VIP Blogger Event" hosted by PennAg Industries on Friday night, I said Heck yeah! I took my best 6-year-old and we hit the road.

I've mentioned before that Pennsylvania is a very farm-y state. We've got Philadelphia on one side and Pittsburgh on the other, but in between it is farmland my friends. Lots and lots of farmland, with a few small cities. So the Farm Show is a huge event in its 96th year that is attended by literally hundreds of thousands of people. Imagine a barn on steroids, then multiply by 100. It is a week of commercial exhibits, competitions, auctions (yes, most of the animals are auctioned), and food. Oh, the food! A lot of people go just for the food because it is that good - especially the milkshakes.

PennAg has created a great display at the Farm Show, which is designed to "help consumers understand how farmers feed a growing population." Here are 3 reasons to hit their Today's Agriculture attraction.

1.  Most of the farm animals kids want to see are all in one place. We usually spend hours wandering through the enormous, warehouse-sized halls in the Farm Show Complex, where there are literally thousands of farm animals. That is a lot of fun but if time is an issue, PennAg has all the heavy hitters in one place: cows (beef, dairy, and veal), hens, chicks, turkeys, ducks, and piglets, not to mention some insane tractors that cost more than our house and are probably bigger than it too! The display is located in the Expo Hall, which is adjacent to the Food Court - how convenient!

 2.  The National Beef Ambassadors are so darn sweet! They were really engaging with Zip, going out of their way to teach him about some of the non-traditional feed that is used in Pennsylvania (leftovers from the Hershey plant?!) and complimenting his artwork (he drew them a cow after our tour).  And here is  something new I learned Friday night: When a farmer sells a cow or pig, a certain amount of the sale goes to the "Beef Checkoff" or the "Pork Checkoff." This money is used to fund research, education, and promotion - including the National Beef Ambassadors who travel around the country talking about, well, beef.

3.  It's easy to turn the exhibit into a simple educational activity for preschoolers or school-age kids. Have them learn one fact at each station as you go through Today's Agriculture. Then, write each fact on a sheet of paper and have your child add drawings to make a little "Farm Show Book." Zip was my "assistant blogger" on Friday, so I asked him to gather facts for me. He kept rushing over to tell me things like, "MOMMA, they sell the turkeys and then they eat 'em. That's a FACT!" and "MOMMA, piglets weigh 2-1/2 pounds when they're born. Write it down!" I learned some interesting things like 88% of commercial chickens in the U.S. are caged in a system like the one shown below to lay eggs and nutritional differences in eggs (e.g., "Omega-3 enriched") are a result of what the chickens are fed. And "roasting chickens" grow very quickly as a result of genetic engineering, not steroids as some people believe.

After our tour, we headed to the Food Court where PennAg graciously let us order whatever we wanted from their huge menu and the PA Dairymen's Association chipped in their amazing milkshakes. (Have I mentioned the shakes yet?) I ordered a pulled pork sandwich and admit I kept thinking of the sow and her piglets I'd just seen while I ate it...that's a Farm Show side-effect, but I think being more tuned in to where my food came from is a good thing. I let Zip get hopped up on chocolate milk, whoopie pies, and a chocolate milkshake just before going home to bed. I'm not sure if that makes me a really awesome mom or a really indulgent one. Maybe both in this case.

A couple of last minute tips and suggestions, if your family plans to visit the Farm Show:

• Definitely go during the week if you can - the crowds are smaller and you can usually park on-site. If you are trying to get the day counted as an "Educational Absence," check out the Farm Show Detective Learning Stations.
• Use a baby carrier rather than a stroller, if possible. We've always taken a stroller and it is manageable, but it also means waiting in line for the elevators.
• When "timing" your visit keep in mind that the complex is huge. With small kids in tow, it will probably take 15 minutes or longer to get from the halls where the animals are back to the Food Court. We avoid going back and forth and time our day so that we eat when we're all done seeing the animals or we eat in the Main Hall which has fewer options than the acclaimed Food Court. 
• Check out the schedule on the Farm Show website ahead of time to see what events are going on.

If you aren't in PA, check this out for fun -  live webcams of the duck slide and chicks hatching.

As mentioned above, my family was invited by PennAg Industries to tour their exhibit and enjoy a complimentary dinner. All opinions are my own. I have great respect for farmers and believe the Farm Show is a fabulous opportunity to expose kids to agriculture and learn something about where our food comes from. We'll be going back on Monday to do the full-shebang!