Kool Kids teaches school-aged children how to manage animals.
On a sunbathed hillside overlooking Spanish Springs, children roam free on Kool Kids Ranch — free to chase chickens, milk goats, and feed miniature cows. Owners Cheryl and Kenny Wright teach nine school-aged children (including their own) how to work a small livestock production ranch, and it all started because of the pandemic.
“Before Covid, we lived on a 1.5-acre property, and I just did a licensed in-home daycare,” Cheryl says. “When Covid hit, there was such a need for school-age programs, so I started teaching distance learning with the kids. That’s how my farm school got started. It really took off.”
The now-10-acre ranch started with miniature cattle that produce A2 protein milk. A2 protein cows are most common in Europe, while larger A1 protein cows, such as Holsteins, make most of the milk Americans buy from the grocery store. A2 protein milk advocates claim it is healthier and easier on the stomach.
Kool Kids Ranch also produces raw goat milk and treats for dogs in addition to chicken eggs, beef tallow, pork lard, and ice cream for humans. The couple sells all of it out of a restored vintage mail truck at farmers’ markets and events.
“At Riverside Farmers Market, people will get ice cream and eggs and get something for their dogs, and it’s all locally made,” Cheryl says.
The Wright family and the children work the farm daily to fill the truck with all the products that keep the farm running. The children especially love the large egg-cleaning machine. The youths line up at the front, putting freshly laid eggs on the conveyor belt while others receive them on the other side and place them neatly into large egg crates. Cheryl moves them into the fridge for safekeeping before selling them.
“To see a five-year-old city slicker milk a goat is a blessing,” Kenny says. “It’s amazing how much the kids enjoy doing it; it’s not really work to them.”
The young participants wear safety helmets while on the ranch to protect their heads from animals and other objects as they make their way through the various pens. They all know what tasks to finish every day: collect chicken eggs, clean them in the big fancy machine, set up the goats for milking, clean the chicken coop, pet the dogs, feed the cows, and so on.
“All of this has really exploded in the last seven months,” Cheryl says. “The Riverside Farmers Market has opened many doors for us because chefs walk through looking for certain things, like grass-fed beef, they can’t find elsewhere.”
Chefs pay for live shares, which allows the ranch to raise beef cattle for specific restaurants. The chicken eggs go to the Great Basin Community Food Co-Op in Reno and even helped fill a critical need during the pandemic. In June of this year, the ranch started raising 250 additional chickens to produce enough eggs for The Shore restaurant inside the Renaissance Reno Downtown Hotel & Spa.
The Wrights follow organic practices but are not officially certified organic by the United States Department of Agriculture. The chickens all eat organic food outside while running free. Five dogs guard the animals and keep them safe from birds of prey and coyotes.
“I feel like we’ve created an opportunity to be creative and to make food more viable and stop it from being harvested in a big facility,” Cheryl says. “We’re just different from a big rancher who might have 300 head of cattle running the range.”
As the ranch grows, the children grow with them. Many started as youngsters and return every day after school for years. Because of that, Kool Kids Ranch is not taking any new students until someone ages out. Kenny says they’ve built relationships with all the families, too.
“It’s become like a second home for them. It’s not just a facility,” Cheryl says. “I treat everyone like they’re my own kids. I wouldn’t treat my kids a different way. It’s more than just a job to me. I care about each family.”
