Minnesota Ag Connection - Midwest Dairy Brings Mootopia to Minnesota Zoo's Family Farm

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Midwest Dairy Brings Mootopia to Minnesota Zoo's Family Farm
Minnesota Ag Connection - 07/16/2019

Imagine a place where kids and their families can gather to play and learn about the life of cows and Minnesota dairy farm families while creating wholesome memories. Welcome to Mootopia. This is not a fictitious place, but rather a real-life dairy experience which occurred at the Minnesota Zoo's Wells Fargo Family Farm recently.

Midwest Dairy enhanced the zoo's farm experience by bringing local Minnesota dairy farmers to the zoo and sharing their farm-to-table story through a variety of "edu-tainment" activities. "We're thrilled to be able to partner with the Minnesota Zoo and engage with their guests who may otherwise not hear from our region's dairy farmers," says Alexandra Larson, a marketing communications manager with Midwest Dairy.

To engage with the families in attendance at the zoo, Midwest Dairy offered "mooga" (cow-inspired yoga), a coloring station, an interactive selfie photo booth and a cow salad activity that featured ingredients found in a dairy cow's diet. "I was surprised by the many positive interactions I had with zoo guests," says Sarah Kuechle, Minnesota dairy farmer, "and their interest in things from the distillers grain by-product used in cow's feed to the variety of ways that milk gets used once it leaves a dairy farm."

In addition to Mootopia's special activities, the Minnesota Zoo's Family Farm also leads daily milking demonstrations. Midwest Dairy's area dairy farmers and dairy ambassadors joined Saturday's milking demos to share their farm's story and answer questions. Midwest Dairy is looking forward to continuing to grow and enhance this new partnership with the Minnesota Zoo.

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