See rare livestock, poultry breeds at Garfield Farm show

Garfield Farm Museum in Campton Hills invites the community to its 30th annual Rare Breeds Livestock and Poultry Show from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, May 22. Admission is $6 or $3 for children younger than 13.

For many Americans, a farm is animals and pastures, barns and a generational family home, crops and fields, families and neighbors bound by common experience of working the land, where nature often calls the shots and work is hard. Yet that image today most likely exists on small farms that strive to produce organic or local foods often started by first-time farmers. Economic realities have depopulated farming communities as bigger farms bought out and consolidated the small farms. Economy of scale dictated being able to survive in farming.

The downturn of 2008 put many enthusiasts of rare breeds in economic straits, and coupled with an aging population that has a connection to animals, rare breeders are becoming rare themselves. Following are some of the breeds and breeders that will be at Sunday's show.

Sheep

The hobby of spinning, weaving, and knitting has done as much as anything to encourage different breeds of sheep whose wool may have different characteristics for the particular fiber need at hand. Diane Herman and Connie Gustavson of the Illinois Green Pastures Fiber Co-Op will have different fiber products to sell. Museum volunteer Julia Bizub of Wisconsin plans to demonstrate spinning and her father-in-law sells homemade drop spindles for spinning.

Some of the finest of wool came from Merino sheep and Garfield Farm Museum's now elderly Merinos will be on display. Loren Marceau, one of the few sheep shearers in the state, will shear the museum's sheep and several others that plan to attend. The still commercially popular Montadale sheep will be represented owned by Jason Davids of Kirkland, Illinois.

Sheep required special attention to keep them safe from predators and so dogs have been bred as guardians of such flocks. Debbie Rock plans to bring her Anatolian Shepherd dog which is a classic example of a working breed that is now becoming less common. Amy Payne's Canaan dog will be demonstrating agility skills as this breed recently established has its ancient ancestry from the Middle East. Payne brings a trailer full of animals and uses the entire 1849 horse barn to display her Rhinelander, Silver Fox, Checkered Giant, American Tan, French Angora, English Lop, Mini Rex and Holland Lop rabbits, her Jacob and Barbados sheep, Nubian goat, American Saddlebred horse, her Blue Slate, Black Spanish, and Chocolate turkeys, Sebastopol geese, and Serama chickens.

Horses

Retired from carriage driving, a 25-year-old Percheron mare will be the feature of a demonstration on how to gain the trust of horses. Percherons were historically one of the most prominent horses in the region as Mark Dunham of Wayne, imported and bred thousands of these important French draft horses in the late 1800s. This is only the second time a full-blooded Percheron will be at the show.

Other breeds of equines expected include Morgan horses, Hackney pony, and Colonial Spanish horses. Tom Norush will bring his Colonial Spanish horses that is a group of closely related breeds that descend from horses brought by Spanish explorers and colonists to the Americas beginning in the 1500s. Hardenberg Feathered Horse Farm of Gilson, Illinois, plans to bring a Fell Pony, one of five native pony breeds of England. The Fell pony was originally used as a packhorse, carrying lead, slate, copper and iron ore in northern England.

Other livestock

The Winifred Hoffman family plans to bring a Milking Shorthorn and Dutch belted dairy calves. Dutch belted dairy cattle have a solid white belt of coloration as their fore and hind sections are solid black. The Hoffmans have been working to preserve these breeds for two generations.

Longtime breeder Clyde Grover plans to bring the Red Wattle Hog, a very lean type of pork that almost became extinct in the 1960s. He also plans to bring a Katahdin sheep, a hair sheep breed that sheds its wool and does not need to be sheared.

Poultry

A line of chickens that was developed from Garfield Farm Museum's rare Black Java chickens, the Auburn Java will be the center of Lyle Behl's display. Because Garfield Farm Museum's small flock of Black Javas were heavily interbred, some brown instead of black and yellow chicks occasionally hatched out when incubated at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. Lyle Behl has actively bred for this type and now after several years has a line of Auburn Javas. He also plans to bring his Silver Java and Icelandic chickens.

Additional poultry breeds will include White Javas and Gold Laced Wyandottes. Other fowl will include American Buff and Pilgrim geese, Welsh Harlequin and Muscovy Ducks, and Narragansett turkeys.

Museum animals

Rare in just terms of age alone, the museum's ox duo, Jesse (21 years), and Duke (20 years) are of the Milking Devon cattle breed. First brought to North America in the 1620s, this breed was good for milk, hides, tallow, and meat, and made the fleetest of foot for oxen. After two decades, the duo is not as fleet and are geriatrics on the equivalent of baby food diet. As animals age they suffer tooth wear and so now a diet of alfalfa pellets and calf sweet feed got them through another winter.

Not all the museum's animals are old, as a pair of recently weaned Berkshire piglets will be on hand, and there will be plenty of Black Java chicks recently hatched by area schools and the Museum of Science and Industry for sale.

Bees

Great concern over the last several years has put the domesticated (European) honey bee in a tenuous position. Colony collapse that has yet to be understood has taken a toll on this pollinator needed for so many fruit and vegetable crops. Glen Mize of Heritage Prairie Farm will be on hand with honey for sale and demonstration of beekeeping.

In addition to the animal exhibits, tours of the 1846 brick tavern will be given and there will be interpretation of the restoration status of the museum's oldest building, the 1842 hay and grain barn. Refreshments will be available for purchase. The museum is on Garfield Road, off Route 38, five miles west of Geneva. For information, call (630) 584-8485 or email info@garfieldfarm.org.

Visit www.garfieldfarm.org or follow the museum on Facebook.