Nimbus Fish Hatchery

Last week we went to the Nimbus Fish Hatchery, near Folsom. It was so fun to take the girls and see all the salmon (3-4 feet long!) climbing the ladders trying to return home to where they hatched so they could spawn. I was really interested in learning about the whole process. I really didn't know how it all worked. These salmon are raised from eggs at the hatchery, grown to be about a foot long and then they take them to SF Bay and let them go in the ocean. After about 3-4 years they find their way back to the place they were born by smelling their way home. Amazing, this is hundreds of miles away and up a few different rivers etc. If you live around here, you must go! They let you feed the small fish and apparently you can come while they harvest the eggs too. This seemed a little gory as they slice the heads off the females and whack the males with a hammer to take their sperm. The video we watched had Taylor worried for a few days and nights.
We made the salmon's life cycle when we got home. With a day off from school it was fun to do some of our own preschool at home again, I miss it.

The girls hatching from the salmon's egg

This is where the little fish were. We fed them tons of food. It's hard to see them in the picture, but there were hundreds swimming around. When we threw the food in they would jump around like crazy.

Here's one of the huge salmon trying to jump the gate--amazing to see how strong they are.