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Farm Field Day
May 14, 2025

Organized by Anderson Ranch

Minature Highlands!

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Farm Field Day is a Free, interactive and educaitonal outing and/or field trip opportunity for all ages from daycares to senior living centers. It is open to the public from 9am to 6pm. Our goal is to add new education, resources and opportunities with every event, and to help our youth learn where their food actually comes from, proper care and nutrition of animals as well as themselves, and so much more! 

We are so thankful for our sponsors and volunteers that help make this day possible!

How does it work?

Groups stay together and go to the different stations available. There is no set order you are required to go in. In order to keep the chaos to a minimum and ensure safety for all, it is suggested to have groups of 30 to 40 max. Groups of children need to be supervised at all times. 

Please RSVP to heather at 319-470-4456 if your group is 15 or more people! We welcome everyone but having somewhat of a schedule and knowing when big groups will arrive is very helpful!

There are handicap accessible bathrooms on site and several cement pathways leading to different areas of the fairgrounds. Event will be Rain or Shine as we have the buildings to utilize at all times.

Pet and feed all sorts of farm animals

From miniature cows, horses, donkeys and pigs to big mules, cows, horses and bunnies; Come see a wide variety of animals!

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Iowa Pork Queen

The Iowa Pork Queen will be joining us with displays of how commercial hog set ups work and helping understand what all we can get from a pig!

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Ag games and activities with the local FFA chapter

Our local Central Lee FFA chapter will have a variety of Ag games and activities!

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Timber Valley Ranch Boer Goats

Shelley and her show crew will have a wide variet of information to share. They will also have a showmanship clinic at 4:30pm for all new, current and old show kids!

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Iowa Beef Industry Council

The IBIC has sent a ton of learning education materials for us to utilize. We will demonstrate where all the yummy cuts of beef come from, proper feed and care of cattle and all the amazing byproducts cattle can provide.

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Bell Longhorns

The Bell family will be bringing their Longhorn mama and baby for us to see. Although we will need to give them their space, you'll still be able to see their massive horns and amazing coloring.

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Beetlejuice Skull Works

Taxedermy is an interesting and fascinating trade. But have you ever seen it done with bugs? Come learn how and watch these little critters work their magic!

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Iowa Corn
Coming May of 2025

Not everyone can visit a farm or an ethanol plant, so we bring the experience to you with two mobile education trailers that provide a fun, interactive experience for attendees to learn all about corn and biofuels. 

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Reptiles with Travis the "snake man"

Come see Travis and all his snakes and lizzards. Learn about them, see them up close and you just might get lucky and get to hold or touch one!

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Learn where food actually comes from!

Through the different stations education will be provided in a variety of ways to explain how our food goes from farm to table and that food doesn't just get made in the back room of the store!

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Service animals

Jesse and Kimchi will be here to educate the kids and older generations just what real service animals do, how a real service animal behaves and how you should/shouldn't approach them!

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Temporary Tattoos

Hundreds of choices of fun temporary tattoos will be available! You can even get your own Anderson Ranch Minis Temporary Tattoo!

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Half Grass Cass Jersey Herd

Cass and her girls will come teach us all about raw milk and the pros and cons. As well as so much more infomation about the dairy industry! Kiddos may even have an opportunity to hand milk a cow!

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Jim's Greenhouse activity

Jim's Greenhouse always has fun activities for our community. They'll have an activity that participants can take home!

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Cotton Candy

Katie and Stacey from Welch's Insurance will have our sugar fix with some yummy cotton candy!

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Balloon Animals!

Toddy Twists will be here in September from 10am to 2pm making balloon animals! 

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2025 Sponsors

We are currently looking for 2025 SponsorsIf you would like to help us reach our goals foradding new activities, please reachout to heather! Anything is greatlyappreciated!

2024 Sponsors

Home Therapy Solutions of Iowa
Truck Repair Inc.
Beck Seeds
Chem Gro
Lee County Cattlemen
Quality Plus Feeds
Conrad American
Henniges
Warner Engineering
Connection Bank
Lee County Farm Bureau
Travis Hayes "the snake man"
Toddy Twists balloons
Krebill Family Farms
Lampe Farms

Service Master of Ft. Madison
B&B Propane
Donnellson Lumber
OCI Fertilizer
Weirathers Minis
Welchs' Insurance Agency
Jim's Greenhouse
Timber Valley Ranch Boer Goats
Jesse Forquer-Puppy Jake Foundation
Beetle Juice Skull Works
Half Grass Jersey Herd
Bell Auction Co.
The Blint Family
Ft. Madison FFA
Central Lee FFA

Farm Field Day brings farm life to all ages

In the cattle barn at the Lee County fairgrounds in Donnellson on Wednesday morning was a shaggy little cow.

This miniature cow, called Ladybug, was cuter than any bovine Walt Disney could have dreamed up. With a caramel colored coat and cream colored face, long white eyelashes and short horns perched over her ears and a fluffy forelock, Ladybug was inquisitive and thrust her broad, pink nose towards visitors.

Those in the know easily found just the right place under the jaw to scratch and become instant friends.

Ladybug, along with a bevy of goats, dairy cows, ponies, a mini donkey, a longhorn, a rabbit, a pig and other animals, interacted with visitors most of the day Wednesday during the Farm Field Day.

Organizer Heather Anderson of Anderson Ranch Mini Highlands (Ladybug’s owner) said she went into Wednesday’s event expecting it to be smaller than the Farm Field Day held in May.

“We had 1,600 kids come last May, when I expected maybe just a couple hundred and it kind of went bonkers,” she said. “So now this fall, it’s not near as busy and all of my teacher friends that I’ve talked to; they do say that fall is harder to do other field trips, because they’ve already got the pumpkin patch built in and some of the younger kids – they aren’t trained to listen yet as school has started and they do a lot of testing at the beginning of the year, which I get.”

In the future, Anderson plans on just having the event in May as it works better for schools, “and that way I can focus the donation money and sponsorship money to just one time a year and hopefully have a lot more things.”

Farm Field Day was open to the public and everybody was welcome to attend.

“We’ve got several daycares that will come throughout the day tomorrow I know of,” she said. “And then we have several senior centers and assisted living and memory care facilities that are bringing some patients and some special needs facilities that are bringing some patients.”

Older folks, Anderson said, know where their food comes from, but enjoy watching the kids interact with the animals and have fun.

As for the kids, it can be a big learning experience.

“This kind of started when a kid that has lived around here forever in southeast Iowa, we sat down to eat supper, eat steak and my son said ‘well, this was my steer from last year from the fair,’ and he said ‘why don’t you just go get your meat, they make it at Walmart,’” Anderson said. “Like oh my God. I was raised on a farm and I’m like holy crap this is real? This isn’t just in big cities, this is right here at home.”

Young people these days aren’t exposed to farm life as much, Anderson said. She said some Burlington and Fort Madison teachers polled their classes and only a handful of the kids had seen a cow in real life, up close.

“The teacher said they really thought their meat just came from the store, they didn’t know,” she said. “Unfortunately there’s adults that still think that.”

Anderson said her goal, “when I get all of this ironed out and all of my rabid squirrels in my duck row, my hope is that they come away with this, that they have a fun day, they learned where some of their food comes from, some of the byproducts, how to take care of an animal, what’s the most important thing for an animal to have.”

Additionally, Anderson hopes a retired veteran friend of hers will do a demonstration with his service dog.

“He’ll teach them what a real service dog should be, how it should act, how we should act to it, don’t approach them, leave them alone, they shouldn’t be jumping around, they shouldn’t be pooping on the floor in Walmart,” she said. “Unfortunately, nowadays, everybody calls their dog a service dog because they want to take it everywhere and there’s service dogs that are really there and have a real need and I think that’s something that kids really need to be taught as well.”

Visitors to Farm Field Day were able to pet and feed the animals, watch a milking demonstration, check out Beetlejuice Taxidermy, see a balloon artist, temporary tattoos, Jim’s Greenhouse and, in the climate controlled learning center, reptiles and snakes.

In the afternoon, 4-H and FFA kids were invited for a goat showmanship demonstration with Timber Valley Ranch Boer Goats

Anderson said her goal is to add more to the Farm Field Day every year.

“Stuff that’s fun,” she said, “but stuff that they can also learn from so that they don’t realize they’re actually learning something while they’re having fun.”

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