While writing any of our Celeste & Zuli Adventures books, including our latest book, Farm Animals (Volume 1), we had to do a lot of research and detective work as we hunted down some interesting and amazing facts about the animals we featured.

And then we had an idea – why not let you try your hand at being a nature detective too?

So, here’s how you can go on your very own animal adventure – on your computer only (as it’s dangerous out in the wild!) – and help us out:

1. Read the 15 fun farm facts below. You may recognize some of these facts from our book, Farm Animals (Volume 1), while others might be new to you.
2. If you need some help you can find out more about these animal facts. Here are a few websites where you can start your research:
   • A-Z Animals
   • National Geographic
   • Wikipedia
3. If you found anything new for the facts listed below, make a note of what you found (e.g. is the information true or not, and if not, what is the correct information) and also the website where you found that information.
4. Once you have completed your research, send us an email with all of the results of your detective work.

Ready to get started?

Good!

Then here are the fun facts that you need to read and possibly investigate:

1. A donkey can see all four of its feet, regardless of which way it looks, thanks to the placement of its eyes.
2. Although chickens are a type of bird, they’re really not very good when it comes to flying. The longest recorded distance flown by a chicken is 301.5 feet (92 meters), while their longest recorded flight is just 13 seconds.
3. A cow typically produces around 200,000 glasses of milk during her life. Production increases, however, when the cows listen to music.
4. On average, plane crashes kill fewer people per year than donkeys do.
5. A cow once murdered another cow in Columbia when it stepped on a loaded rifle and shot the other cow in the head.
6. About 30% of the methane in our atmosphere is produced by cows.
7. Cows, including bulls, are color blind. Bulls do not charge a matador’s cape because it is red, but because it is moving.
8. Cows can walk upstairs, but they can’t walk downstairs because of the way their legs bend.
9. You may find it hard to believe, but according to some scientists, the closest living relative to that huge dinosaur known as Tyrannosaurus Rex is the chicken.
10. A dozen or more cows are collectively known as a fink.
11. Although the disease “chicken pox” sounds like it is caused by chickens, it’s actually a slight corruption of an Old English term “gican pox,” which was a type of itching pox.
12. There is a mental disorder that is very rare which makes a person believe they’re an ox. One of the earliest recorded cases of boanthropy, as it’s called, was in the Bible, in the book of Daniel (4:33), which relates the story of a Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar, who liked to eat grass.
13. The glands of a cow can be found in its nose.
14. The breed of a chicken determines what color the egg’s shell will be. And while we mainly see eggs that are either brown or white, some chickens, such as the Araucana and Ameraucana, produce green eggs and blue eggs, for example. The color of the yolk, on the other hand, can be affected by a chicken’s diet: if chicken are fed certain dyes, then they will lay eggs that have yolks which are not necessarily yellow, as you’d normally expect.
15. There are roughly the same number of chickens in the world as there are people, with China having more than anywhere else – about three billion chickens, to be exact. The United States, on the other hand, only has about 450 million chickens.

The next step is to take a super-fun quiz on the computer. If you read carefully, then this should only take a short while to complete.

Once you click the following link, the computer will ask you for your name and your email address. Please check your spelling very very carefully. Because once you are finished the computer will send your Farm Report to your email address within 24 hours.

I want to take the Fun Farm Quiz #1 now!

You never know, there might be a prize for best Farm Report. The only way you will find out is if you enter your correct email address. Ask your mom to help you on this important step.

Good Luck,