November 8-9th, 2014
Luke had to be in Kentucky for a week for work purposes so the weekend before his shifts started the four of us decided to stay with my Uncle Mike and Aunt Kathy who live in a 5 bedroom log cabin near Lexington. There house is beautiful and so was the Sunday morning that we woke up to. We decided to all go for a walk nearby and introduce them both to the hobby of geocaching that Luke and I have grown to love.
It was a matter of minutes before Mike found his first cache! We then went on to find three more that day. After geocaching the kids were able to play in Uncle Mikey's play room. They soon discovered that he is a collector and has more toys than they do! (I'm not exaggerating) I have never seen more beanie babies in one room. He is also a fan of Tigger and has a huge Winnie the Pooh collection. The kids didn't understand why there were so many boxes they couldn't open and check out but they had fun looking at it all.
The next morning, Luke and I were able to take the kids to my Uncle's work for a tour of the facility. He works with chicken research on the University of Kentucky's campus. If there is anything anyone ever wanted to know about a chicken my Uncle is the person who would know the answer. He knows chickens inside and out down to the molecular level. He has been working with poultry for over 20 years. While we were there we were able to see four different rooms that had different research projects happening. The first room was a controlled environment with various coops of chickens that were all contained under the same environment (coop size, light, temperatures, all males etc) the only different variable for the chickens was the type of food they were each being fed. This research would later help in knowing what type of feed produces the best tasting chicken.
The second room of chickens were all breeder chickens that were in holding awaiting maturity so that they could lay eggs/fertilize within the next few weeks.
The third room of chickens were egg laying chickens. Mineral replacement was being researched in order to see the different qualities of the eggs being laid. We were seconds late on seeing a chicken actually lay an egg. We got to touch it while it was still warm. We learned that the egg laying chickens are sold to the public once the research has been conducted and University chickens are a hot commodity because the public knows that they are well taken care of and will make great meals.
The fourth room is where the roosters were kept. They were some loud cocks. Artificial insemination took place in this room. We didn't stay in there too long because we had the kids and it was hard to ask questions and talk in there.
During our visit I felt like we learned so much about chickens. I haven't ever sat back and thought too much about all the work that goes into the eggs that I eat or the chicken that I cook. Its good to know that so much work is being done in order to make sure that our meat is safe and high quality. I think the funniest thing that Mike told us was that if you see a label on a package of chicken at the store that says, "No Hormones Added" it's because there is absolutely no farm in the United States adds hormones to their chicken. Its a marketing ploy. Every single piece of chicken that is sold in any store that we shop at could have this on their label and it would be a correct statement. This just made me laugh.
Mike and Kathy thanks so much for letting us come visit with you. The kids enjoy you both. We hope you enjoyed geocaching with us. We thank you so much for the tour of the chicken facility. It was fun to take the kids to a new place and to learn a thing or two:)
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