COVE CITY - Between 400 and 500 children walked around an old farm Saturday, looking for plastic Easter eggs that were stashed in the grass, under benches and next to trees.

A Day at The Farm held its ninth annual Easter egg hunt. For several dollars, people could enjoy a day of fun at the farm with their family. Parents from Jacksonville, Havelock, Kinston, New Bern and other cities took their children to the old McCoy dairy farm on Woodrow-McCoy Road.

Julia Bircher and Melissa Barnett, who are sisters, grew up on the farm. Bircher said they now try to preserve the history of the farm and share it with others.

"We expect we had 250 come out this morning and another 200 to 250 this afternoon," she said.

Some children ran through a maze made of hay bails. Others petted, hugged and fed a brown and white calf, gray goats, a miniature horse and sheep. Ava, 2, and Isabel, 5, Simmons of Havelock spent several minutes looking at the calf.

A tractor pulled a wooden wagon full of children, adults and hay along Woodrow-McCoy Road. The farm offered the hay rides every 10 minutes.

"Is it time for the egg hunt now?" Cameron Stoops said. Cameron, who is 5, jumped off the wagon and ran to a farmhouse where people were gathering with a variety of Easter baskets.

Bircher told parents and children that she began hiding eggs as the sun rose Saturday morning. She said eggs were hidden in several places on the farm. She split the children into groups by age and told them to start looking. It was 10:45 a.m.

A boy used a baseball-shaped bucket to carry his eggs. A girl used a milk jug, with the top cut off and a face drawn on, to carry hers. Landon Thomas, 2, had a basketball-shaped Easter basket.

"We've always had family ones," his father said. "This is his first big Easter egg hunt."

Children picked up eggs that were purple, orange, blue and yellow. One child shared several of his eggs with another who didn't have as many in his basket. Some of the plastic eggs had candy in them.

Auryn Davis of Kinston jumped on a playground swing. When Auryn, who is 6, got out of the swing, he found an egg underneath. He walked to a fence and picked up another egg. Next to a mailbox post, he eyed another before dropping it in his plastic bucket.

"I got eggs all over the place," Auryn said. He licked a scoop of ice cream as he looked for more.

A woman from Rocky Mount said she has to take her daughter to A Day at the Farm each year, because she thinks an Easter Egg hunt has to have animals.

Bircher said it took about an hour to hide all of the eggs. When the morning hunt ended, volunteers at the farm began hiding eggs for another group of children that would look for them at 3 p.m.