Rare farm animals showcased in Campton Hills

The term “rare chicken” might sound like an oxymoron or perhaps an invite for salmonella poisoning, but it’s serious business to the staff and volunteers of Garfield Farm and Inn Museum in Campton Hills.

The museum, located on about 375 verdant acres, includes a barn, a horse barn and an inn, all dating back to the 1840s. It is also the largest Illinois farm on the National Register of Historic Sites.

But its most prized possession is an assortment of rare breed domesticated animals, including Milking Devon oxen, Pilgrim geese, Berkshire hogs, Narragansett turkeys, wrinkled Merino sheep, and yes, Black Java chickens.

On Sunday, all of these plus many other animals hailing from farms as far as Ohio were showcased in the 26th annual Rare Breeds Livestock and Poultry Show and Sale at the museum.

“People think of a polar bear as a really rare animal, or a tiger, something you would see at the zoo, but these domesticated farm animals are rare, too,” said museum operations director Bill Wolcott. For example, Java chickens were on the verge of extinction when the Garfield Museum began raising them in the 1980s, he said.

Claudia Frost, of St. Charles, has attended the show every year since its inception, and can’t remember it ever taking place with anything but sunshine and blue skies. She loves walking around in the open air in a setting that almost takes you back in time, she said.

“You also gain this awareness of things that might be lost if we don’t take care of them, if we don’t preserve them,” Frost said.

Other visitors, like Kirstin and Doug Salter of Elburn, had an eye for business, too. While their 4 ½-year-old daughter excitedly pointed at some Icelandic chickens, the couple eyed them as potential new tenants for their farm.

Among the owners who showed off their animals was Deb Callister of Campton Hills, whose 6-year-old Spanish Norman horse was named, well, Norman. When Callister bought him, she only knew his breed by the name Andalusian Percheron, she said.

“I enjoy doing everything with him, he’s a real joy,” said Callister, a member of the Kane County Mounted Rangers.

The museum will run three summer camps in July: two half-day camps for children ages 8-11 and a full day camp for children ages 12-15. All sessions are $75 per child. For information call (630) 584-8485 or email info@garfieldfarm.org.