Learn about rare breeds at Garfield Farms show

Submitted by Garfield Farm Museum

Garfield Farm Museum will hold its 27th annual Rare Breeds Livestock & Poultry Show and Sale from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, May 19. The only show of its type held in Illinois, looks at the loss of genetic diversity among domestic animals that humans have depended upon for food, fiber, and work for hundreds of years. For many visitors to the show, it is the first and perhaps last time in their lives they might ever see some of these highly endangered breeds.

Some the animals that expected at the show include Red Wattle piglets, Milking Shorthorn and Dutch Belt dairy calves, Jacob, Shetland, and Merino sheep, Shire and Morgan horses, Dales and Hackney ponies, Black, White and Auburn Java, Icelandic, and White Wyandotte chickens, Narragansett and Bourbon Red turkeys, Pilgrim and Buff geese, various rabbits, and goats.

Breeders will exhibit their animals at the museum with a chance to meet other breeders and prospective buyers. There will be handcrafted soaps from Red Wattle lard, yarns, and various fiber products. In addition to seeing the animals, visitors can tour the 1846 teamster inn, watch demonstrations of sheep shearing, ox driving, wool spinning, or enjoy refreshments from Inglenook Pantry. There is a $6 donation for adults and $3 for children 12 years and younger.

Garfield Farm Museum is five miles west of Geneva off Route 38 on Garfield Road. The 370-acre museum is supported by donations and is the only surviving historically intact former 1840s Illinois prairie farmstead and teamster inn being restored as an 1840s working farm museum. For information, call (630) 584-8485 or email info@garfieldfarm.org.