See rare livestock, poultry breeds at Garfield Farm show May 19
Owners of rare breeds of livestock and poultry will display their animals at the 33rd annual Rare Breeds Show from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, May 19, at Garfield Farm Museum in Campton Hills.
This is the longest running show in the Midwest that has featured rare breeds of farm and working animals.
Members of the national organization, the Livestock Conservancy have participated every year.
The show includes sheep shearing, demonstrations of wool processing, lectures, sales of animal products, a chance to talk with breeders and owners, tours of the 1846 brick inn and more.
The event focuses on the loss of genetic diversity among domestic animals that historically provided food, fiber or work for humankind. As modern production wants only the most profitable, many breeds are endanger of forever disappearing. The great strides in genetics makes the loss of these genes a true tragedy and waste of centuries of selective breeding.
As wild animals were captured and raised by humans, the ones that became tame over generations and provided important needs for survival became our present day domesticated animals. Through the centuries as change occurred, animal breeding favored those that met the new challenges. The incredible rate of change today be it economic, nutritional, political, environmental, or pathogenic calls for the greatest pool of genes possible to select from to meet future change.
In addition to the practicality of preserving these breeds, they also offer great satisfaction to their owners and animal enthusiasts who admire the various breeds' beauty, conformation, temperament, abilities or novelty of variety.
The Rare Breeds Show is a great way to discover and marvel at the unexpected like the "Oreo cookie" cattle, the Dutch Belted dairy or Belted Galloway beef cattle. With a white belt around their mid sections the black head and tail end is surprising as seeing one's first wild zebra.
The weather conditions around the Great Lake states often determines which breeders feel comfortable making the trip to the show during the midst of planting season and school graduations.
The return visit by the Lippitt Morgan Horse Registry and the stallion, The Red, will bring the history of Vermont to this Illinois prairie farmstead just as the Garfields hailed from the Green Mountain State. In fact, Figure, a bay colt born in 1789 and owned by Vermonter Justin Morgan, was born just eight years before Timothy Garfield.
Figure was the start of the Morgan horse line. Lippitt Morgans are more like the early Morgan horses that doubled as riding, driving, and draft animals just as Old-Time Scotch Collie dogs differ distinctly from the collie shepherds of today. The Myer and Siegrist families will be bringing both from Missouri.
Minnesota will be represented at the show by the Shultz family with their Highland cattle and Champagne and Crème D'Argent, and Argenté Brun rabbits.
Though thought of as pets, these rabbits were developed in 1870s France for fur and the Crème D'Argent developed in America for meat.
Highland cattle originated in Scotland and with their shaggy hair coat and long horns make a most impressive looking breed. Their ability to do well just foraging, eating grasses and weeds has actually helped to improve pastures.
Cotswold, Jacobs, Katahdin, Merino, Montadale, Romney, Teeswater, and Wensleydale sheep breeds will be represented.
American Guinea Hogs and Red Waddle and modern Berkshire pigs will fascinate younger visitors with their unexpected bursts of energy followed by complete collapse into coma-like naps.
Peter Dordal offers a chance for young visitors to sit astride his Morgan mare, Grace, usually accompanied by a Hackney pony. If the mud dries up Bruce Sims of Long Eared Livery Service will bring his mules, which are a cross between a horse breed and a donkey breed.
In addition to the Dutch belted calf, Martha and her mother Winifred Hoffman who have BestYet A.I. Sires will bring a traditional milking shorthorn calf that is a dual-purpose breed producing ample milk but also fattens well on grass for meat.
The museum's Milking Devon oxen represent a historic New England breed first brought in the 1620s from Devonshire, England. According to the American Milking Devon Cattle Association, there are only about 1,200 to 1,500 living animals registered at any given time.
Feathered friends will include the museum's rare Black Java chickens as well as Clyde Grover's French Wheaton Marans. Magpie and Muscovy ducks, quail, Pilgrim geese, and Narragansett turkeys round out this group. As long as the Anatolian sheep dogs do not view them as threat, the Silver Fox and American Chinchilla rabbits should be fairly relaxed. Anatolians were developed to guard flocks of sheep.
For information, call (630) 584-8485 or email info@garfieldfarm.org.
There is a $6 donation for adults and $3 for children younger than age 13.
Refreshments by Inglenook Pantry will be available.
Garfield Farm Museum is on Garfield Road, off Route 38, five miles west of Geneva. The 375-acre site is being restored as an 1840s living history farm and inn museum.