Tye's Tour 2015

Well the trip is over and I am now home! I am happy and sad that it is over. I really enjoyed touring all over the Midwest and learning about their agriculture but I am also very happy to be home. This class was one of the best classes I have ever taken through OSU. I am very happy I got the opportunity to take it. There was soo much to do/learn on this trip. Their were a lot of firsts on this trip as well. For example, I saw my first soybean plant! which was awesome I have never seen one before. Also, I got to milk a cow for the first time. It was very exciting haha Now I want my own cow to milk. I tried sheep cheese for the first time. I did not like it very much but I still tried it. Oh and I got to watch someone AI a gilt. That was probably my favorite. It was really interesting on how he got the semen for the boar to putting it in the gilt. It was very fascinating. There were a lot more first experiences and just plain awesome ones. This was the best trip ever. I went in only knowing one or two people and now left being friends with all 15 others. If this trip happens next year, I will definitely be the first one to sign up!

Soo today is our last full day in the MidWest. I have mixed feelings about this trip coming to an end. I had a lot of fun touring around and learning so much but I am also ready to go home and see my family, animals and boyfriend. With this being our last full day we spent it at University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Their campus is really pretty but it is spilt into two. They have a Main Campus and then an East Campus. We toured just the East Campus because that is where all of the agricultural buildings and classes are. Before we went to the East campus we had our first stop at their research feedlot.

Their research feedlot is a little bit of ways off of their campus. We got to their research feedlot at about 8AM. Let me tell you it was freezing but really awesome to see. I wish our campus had a feedlot. They have a total of 2,500 cows and doing all different kinds of research. For some of them they are seeing what temperature does to them. They way they do that is they have this little sensor type thing in their rumen and it sends all the data for their research to a tower and then to their computer. So they don’t have to go out and try to take a temperature of every cow every hour the sensor and computer does it all for them. Which is pretty amazing!!

After the feedlot we went to their East Campus and tour almost all of their agricultural buildings. My favorite building was their animal science building! It was pretty sweet. They had their meat lab inside of their building!!! Also they have barns in the building. So they have classes’ room where the professor will bring in live animals to teach! I thought that was awesome! They will bring in cows, pigs or sheep to the class room to give the student hands on learning and experience. I thought that was just amazing.

One of my favorite parts of touring their campus was seeing their stadium! It was huge and super fantastic! I know it is not Ag related but it was so cool. It was not like any old stadium. Their stadium was attached to other indoor facilities. They had an indoor sand volleyball court and weight room just for their volleyball teams. That is the first time I have ever seen that. The sand volleyball court had 40 inches of white sand flown in from Hawaii (that probably cost a lot!). It is just insane to me how big their stadium was and how many facilities they had in/attached to it!

There entire school from the parts that I saw was fascinating. It was a huge campus and had many facilities with a lot of hands on work. Although, One thing that I did not like was that they had a vet school but you cannot apply to it unless you are a Nebraska resident. Which kind of sucks! Whatever my number one choice for vet school is still OSU!!!

A collage of some of the things we saw/visited! Oh They let us go on the field!!!!

We are getting closer to the end of our trip 🙁 I am pretty sad about it coming to an end. I have learned a lot of this trip and had a lot of fun. Anyways, today we toured a 4K Farms!! Which for you who do not know what that is, it is a Swine farm (Pig Farm)!!!! It was in the middle of nowhere. Well at least that is what it felt like to me since I am from Southern California. But I loved it. The farm was pretty big, which I was not expecting when we turned into it. I really liked this tour today though because I do not know much about pigs so it was very interesting. Also, the guy (Kirk) giving us a tour was so awesome. He collected semen from the one of the boars (which were HUGE!) and then AI (artificially inseminated) one of his  gilts. It was probably the coolest thing I have ever seen (Not in a weird way). I am just fascinated by AIing and have never actually seen it in person so I was excited! But not only did he do that he took us to see his baby pigs and he let us hold one! I was super excited they were all so cute! I really enjoyed his farm.

Just how flat and open Iowa is!The group of us! me holding a baby pig!

One of Kirk’s giant boars!

After the 4K Farms we went to Omaha Zoo!!!! Which I love animals so I have been waiting for this the whole trip!!! It was one of the biggest zoos I have been too. It was really nice although most of it was under construction to make it bigger and better. So later of in the future I want to go back to the zoo to see it finalized. We saw basically every animal… except elephants 🙁 They didn’t have any elephant because they are working on there elephant sanctuary. Which should be done in Spring of 2016!!! So I am definitely coming back to see it!!

 

Just some pictures from the Zoo!!!

Today was a lot of fun because we got to tour and awesome farm and then go to the zoo. i loved it all because every place we went to there were animals! I am sad there is only one more full day left…. If this trip happens next year I am definitely coming on it!!

 

XOXO,

 

Tye

 

Today was possibly my favorite day so far on this trip. I am saying possibly because the last couple days might top it. Our first stop today was to Shatto Milk Company. It was a very cute dairy. I thought it was small but after touring it, it was pretty big. They have almost 400 cows and milk all of them at least twice a day some of them three times a day. At the dairy they make there own milk (duh!), cheese and ice cream. Although, the milk they make is not just your usual milk you buy at a grocery store. They have flavors like rootbeer, chocolate-peanut butter, strawberry, banana, coffee, cookies n cream, and cotton candy. I know a lot of those sound gross but they were all delicious except the chocolate-peanut butter only because I do not like peanut butter. They are in the process of creating two more flavors. They did not tell us what those flavors were though but I know they’ll be delicious. They have a cute little store where you can purchase all kinds of their stuff. I just bought there chocolate milk and sweet tea because I love both of those. If I ever come back to Missouri I will definitely stop at this dairy again! Oh and this place is amazing!! On a busy day they will bottle a total of 14,000 bottles of milk. I forgot.. I also got to milk a cow for the first time ever! It was pretty awesome!

All of us in front of the Shatto Milk Company Milk Truck!

 

 

 

 

 

All of there different milks in their bottles!

ME MILKING A COW!!!!

After we left Shatto Milk Company we went to Schweiver Orchards. This orchard is not like many I have been too. It is a U-pick Orchard which is a lot of fun! They have everything there from peaches to apples to berries to pumpkins and Christmas trees and a lot more. The owner of the Schweiver Orchards took us on a hay ride to show us around and he even let us have an apple. It was soo good. I love apples and it was delicious. I wish I would have picked my own apples to eat for the rest of this trip.

 

Well to put it all together I think I should just move to Missouri so I can have as much milk and apples as I want. haha Well I really enjoyed everything today from the learning/touring to the delicious food I got to have. Can’t wait for tomorrow!!

 

XOXO,

 

Tye

  Oh man today was a very early and busy one! We left our hotel at 6AM to get to our first stop at Triumph Farms processing plant by 9:30AM. We aren’t aloud to talk about what we saw but it was really interesting. I will just tell you one little thing and that it was a pig slaughter and packaging plant so I think you get the hang of it.

After Triumph Farms processing plant we drove to a Sheep Dairy. It was a very small and cute sheep dairy. Also, the first sheep dairy I have ever been too. They have a total of 75 sheep and they all get milked. They treat it exactly like a cow dairy farm. If the sheep have mastitis they will separate them from the other sheep and milk them last so the milk from infect sheep does not get mixed with the healthy sheep. They give the sheep with mastitis antibiotics until they are healthy and they keep them separated from the other cows until the antibiotics are out of their system which takes about two weeks. After milking all their sheep they get about 2 lbs. of milk. They also buy sheep milk from two Amish farms to get more milk for their supply. With their all of their milk they make cheese and yogurt. We got to try the cheese and to be honest I was not a fan of it. Although, I am not a fan of a lot of cheeses. It tasted very sheepy if that makes sense haha. Anyways I really enjoyed learning about the sheep dairy and how it works.

Above is one of the cheeses we tasted!

All of us before cheese tasting!

The last stop for today was the Monsanto fields. It was very pretty and a beautiful day to go. The weather was perfect. It was not too hot or too cold. They had fields for days. At least that is how it felt for me because I did not grow up around fields like that. It was very pretty. They had soybeans and corn growing. The food was not for human consumption but it was used to make animal food. I mean you could eat it (at least i hope because I did) but that was not its main purpose. The three men giving us the tour around the fields were very informative and answered every question we had for them. At the end of the tour they gave us a hat. It was very sweet of them.

All of us at Monsanto!

The left is a picture of their crops and then the sign for the entrance is the picture of the right!

Tomorrow is a later start day for I am excited for that. I know this post is short but I hope you got the gist of it. Thanks for reading.

XOXO,

Tye

WOAH! Today was a lot to take in. We went to two different facilities today. The first one we went to was Purina Animal Nutrition Center and then University of Missouri.

The Purina Animal Nutrition Center was really big (like 1,188 acres big). Oh and I learned that the Purina Animal Nutrition Center is different than the Purina dog food which is owned by Nestle. The Purina Animal Nutrition Center is owned by Land O’Lakes. I always use their butter when baking. The two Purinas were one company at one point but they separated 30 years ago. Purina Nutrition is known for their checkerboard logo. It all started with the “Brown Family”. The Brown Family always wore checkerboard everything so they wouldn’t get lost from each other and can always find each other easily. Well the owner of Purina back then thought that was a good idea for there logo because it would stand out and everyone would know who and what they were buying and buying it from. He was right! Known everyone knows who or what company they are buying from with the checkerboard logo on it.

The Purina Animal Nutrition Center is where they do nutritional studies and research for horses, beef cattle, pigs, dairy cows and companion animals (not dogs and cats). The nutrition center opened in 1926 and started out with 260 acres and now have close to 1,200 acres. They have done 24,000 different research studies and over 110 patents. They create 6-8 patents a year (That is amazing!). They have 3,000 animals at their nutrition center. We quite a few of them. We visited their equine unit, cattle unit, dairy unit, and companion unit. They were all very interesting. I do not have any picture have Purina because they did not allow us to take any (I was a little sad). At their dairy unit they milked 263 cows and 53 were dry. In their dairy unit they have 36 different diets and 9 research studies going on. I think that is really interesting. Some fun facts I learned at the horse unit are: horses lungs have a surface area of 7 tennis courts (WOW. I was shocked as well)! Their resting heart rate is 24-40 beats a minute and their maximum heart rate is 240 beats a minute as for humans resting heart rate is 60-70 and maximum is 220 beats a minute. A horses heart is the size of a volleyball (that is HUGE!). On the nutrition center they also have a honeybee research for pollination. They have 200 hives with 15-20,000 in each hive! That is a lot of bees!

At University of Missouri we visited their animal science building and saw glow in the dark pigs! Yes I said glow in the dark pig and No I am not crazy or making it up. A couple teachers and students did some gene mixing and took a human diabetic gene and attached a florescent gene to it and put it in the pigs before they were born. So when they were born only a few of the pigs in the litter had the glow in the dark gene. Which is so awesome!!! We got to look at one pig with the gene and one without it. To do that they took up in to this room with the pigs side by side and turned off the light. My first thought was the whole pig was going to glow. It did not happen like that. When the light is off the only part of the pig that glows in the feet, nose and eyes. So we looked through black light goggles and the entire body lite up green!!!! That was the coolest thing I have ever seen! After we saw the pig we got to see all of there farms on campus. Which I liked a lot because we got to see all of animals. Again, I did not take pictures because we couldn’t take pictures of the glow in the dark pigs and then I forgot to take some of the animals.

After we were doing visiting all of University of Missouri’s ag facilities we got to explore there campus. There rec center was huge and amazing. It was the best rec center ever. I am pretty sure our tour guides were trying to convince all of us to transfer to their school it was that amazing. Of course I would never transfer because I really like OSU and secondly it is too far from home! Yes, mom I know you are reading this and thinking I am too much of a baby huey to go that far and I agree.

So far today has been my favorite day of the tour. Even though it is only like the second day of visiting and touring places. I learned so much and enjoyed every part of it all! I can not express enough how happy I am that I actually came on this trip and that Matt actually got it happen. I can’t wait for the rest of the week in the MidWest and visiting and learning so much more. Hope you all enjoy and are keeping up with my blog and our hashtag: #15MWAGTOUR

XOXO,

Tye

Today was pretty eventful and exciting! We started out the day going to the Old St. Louis Courthouse, which was awesome. I love going to old places and learning about their history. The building was really big and pretty with a domed top. I loved all of the old architecture it had. Also, right when you walk in and get into the middle they have a huge American flag hanging and beautiful paintings on the ceiling. We toured around the courthouse for a little bit and saw all of their old court rooms (there was only two but it was still very cool). The staircase to go up was very old and pretty. The only thing I wish the courthouse had was air conditioning. Oh man it was so hot and stuffy. I am definitely not use to this weather it was in the high 80’s but with 80% humidity. I felt like I was melting.

Here are a couple photos of the American Flag and paintings on the ceiling.

Some awesome pictures of the courtrooms!

Above is a picture of Kailee and I with one of the props at the courthouse. It’s kind of like a photo booth and I love photo booths so it was a must!

After the courthouse we went to the St. Louis Arch and went on a riverboat tour. The arch was AMAZING!! The riverboat tour not so much. There was not that much to see on the riverboat tour but the arch had an awesome view. I was nervous riding up the little elevator (and I mean little!) for the arch but it was definitely worth it.

A picture of the arch otherwise known as the gateway to the west.

FUNFACT: it is 630ft tall (63 stories) and it was built on February 12th, 1963 and completed October 28th 1965 and during the making of the arch no one was injured or died.

The picture to the left is the view from the arch and that building in the middle with the blueish dome is the Courthouse and the picture to the right is looking directly down from the arch.

Just some pictures of me at the top of the arch!

This is the little elevator to go up the arch (I told you it was little) and it looks like a toilet but there are five seats in it.

Lastly, we went to the Monsanto Research Facility. To be honest I did not know what it was before I went, so I was in for a shock. It was very interesting and I learned a lot of information. Monsanto is an agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology cooperation. They genetically engine seeds to protect the plant against insects and to improve farm productivity. The facility was huge! We toured all over. We saw the machine they use to shave the seeds to get the genes from them so they can genetically modify them. We also went into one of their green houses and for the first time I saw cotton actually being grown. It was pretty cool. They also have these little rooms that look like they would be refrigerators but they can set the temperature to mimic any weather from anywhere in the world. We saw one that was like Brazil. It was cool. The facility was so awesome. They have so much equipment and such talented people working there.

This is a picture of the entire group that is on the tour in front of the Monsanto Research Center!

Above is the entrance to the building!

This is the machine used to shave the soybeans.

FUN FACT: seeds have embryos!

There is just soo much to say about today! I am so glad I got to go on this tour. I really enjoyed learning about Monsanto and how they work. Also, to see there facility which was huge! I can’t wait for the rest of this week and all the other facilities we are going to visit. I will be posting more FUN FACTS into my blogs from what I learned that day. I hope you enjoy!

XOXO,

Tye

I finally made it to St. Louis! (OMG so exciting, I know). Well today wasn’t very exciting. I got up at 3:30AM and left to the airport at 3:45AM to make my flight at 6:00AM. It was definitely a rough morning but very worth it. I am not a big fan of flying alone so it was a hard flight and to make it worse there was a lot of TURBULENCE (talk about being terrified) but I made it safe and sound as did everyone else so YAY! I arrived at the airport in St. Louis around 11:30AM and met up with my friend Alicia.

  This is Alicia and I! You will probably be seeing a lot more pictures of us (we both brought a selfie stick!). In the picture we were outside of the airport in the rain. It was not anything like regular rain it was disgustingly humid (about 80% humidity). I was not expecting it at all but whatever I can deal with it. Alicia and I were waiting at the airport from 11:30AM to 4:00PM. It was very long and not really boring actually. We watched a movie and explored around the airport, which wasn’t that big.

After the everyone arrived at around 4:00PMish we went to the car rental and got some awesome mini vans (WHOOP WHOOP!). They are actually pretty sweet mini vans. We joked around with the adviser Matt that he was a soccer dad haha. We made the best of it by taking some selfies in it with the SELFIE STICK and Matt took his first selfie on the selfie stick!

This is a couple selfies with the selfie stick and Matt’s first selfie with the selfie stick. It was a lot of fun. While we were waiting for the mini vans I had to compromise my suitcase for a seat. It was pretty comfortable.

Yes! I had the biggest suitcase but it did come in handy for a chair so it worked out.

When we left the car rental lot we went to the hotel and got ready for the cardinals game (we had about ten minutes). We all got ready and took the shuttle over to the stadium. The seat we had were awesome. We had an ALL YOU CAN EAT BUFFET! It was delicious! I had way too much to eat but it was most definitely worth it. This is a picture from our seats! The picture makes it look like we were farther away than we actually were. The game was kind of boring (8-0) so we ended up leaving early and as we left the started making home runs. I think we cursed them but it was a great experience!

Well that pretty much sums up today. Tomorrow is going to be an eventful day so I will be sure to write in my blog tomorrow and post more pictures! I hope you enjoyed it. Make sure to check out our hashtag: #15MWAGTOUR

 

XOXO,

Tye

 

Well… I am now in the final hours before the trip starts! I am really excited but also very nervous! I do not like flying alone so that is why I am nervous but I can not wait to see and learn as much as I can!

My flight leaves tomorrow morning at 6AM!!! (OMG is right!) I’m going to die haha so that means I will be leaving my house at 3:45 AM!!!! It is going to be a very busy and tiring day but it will be so worth it! I can not wait to get there and meet up with everyone and just begin this 2015 OSU MidWest AG Tour!!!

I honestly do not know what to expect when I get there! I did not grow up around much agriculture so I am excited to learn about how they do it in the MidWest. Our schedule during the week is very busy visiting all different places. It is very exciting! I can not wait to visit everywhere and learn everything. My main goal about this trip (if you can not already tell) is to learn as much as I can!

Hope you all are enjoying my blog. I will get more in depth with pictures and the places we visit once I get there! Also, if you want to see more go to our hashtag on either facebook, twitter or instagram: #15MWAGTOUR  I can’t wait to share this experience with everyone!

 

XOXO,

Tye

 

I am Tylen but I like to go by Tye. I grew up in southern California in a town called Ventura. I did not grow up on a farm around agriculture or any cows or anything. I grew up mostly on the beach and in the gymnastics gym. Although, I have always had a love for animals, mostly cats and dogs because that is what I grew up with. I was not around much other animals other than horses time to time with my grandma.  Since I was little I have wanted to be a vet so that is why I am attending Oregon State University to make that dream come true.

OH that’s me! I got a selfie stick and was pretty exciting about it. So you’ll probably be seeing more pictures like this…and some group shots with everyone.

Picture of my hometown. It’s beautiful!! It’s okay I know you’re jealous, I would be too.  🙂

I  am writing this blog for my class trip on Sept 8th-15th. I am really excited about it and this blog (this is my first blog ever!). The trip is going to be sooo much fun! We are going to the MIDWEST to visit all different Ag facilities. To make it clear we are going to the Midwest in the US (there was a lot of confusion there). I have never been to the Midwest so I am excited to visit and learn all about their agriculture life. I think it will be an amazing experience and I cannot wait!

I first heard about this trip in one of my classes last fall. I remember the teacher (Matt Kennedy, who is the teacher going on this trip with us) asking us if anyone would be interested in doing this. I immediately raised my hand. From then on I could not wait to sign up. Although, I did not hear much about it. So I thought it wasn’t going to happen, until I got an email talking about it. I was just a little excited to receive that email (first and last time that will happen). As soon as I could I signed up for the class.

I am hoping this tour will help me gain more knowledge on agriculture and all the different aspects of it. I hope you all enjoy my blog about me and trip. Tell me how you like it!

XOXO,

Tye

 

 

 

 

 

photo works cited: https://www.google.com/search?q=picture+of+Ventura,+California&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAWoVChMInLuHu53HxwIVRKOICh1YdQP5&biw=1244&bih=613#tbm=isch&q=broc+ellinger+pictures+of+Ventura%2C+California&imgrc=j8QdyIdKxVfREM%3A