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News from Garfield Farm |
Reservations and registrations are now being
taken by Garfield Farm Museum for its annual Rare Breed Livestock and
Poultry Show to be held Sunday, May 18 with a special class on May 17
on Chicken Selection by Don Schrider of the American Livestock Breeds
Conservancy (ALBC). The seminar will be held from 10 am - 3 pm on
Saturday and the show will be open from 11 am - 4 pm the following day.
The Chicken Selection Seminar is the first to
be regionally held by experts from the ALBC. Don Schrider is the
Communication Director and poultry expert for the ALBC and will discuss
techniques successfully applied to rare Standard bred poultry lines by
himself, Frank Reese, Art Cosner, Mark Atwood, Paul Gilroy, and others.
From basic questions like how to tell if a hen is an active egg layer,
which young should be retained and raised for breeding, to the more
complex evaluation of productivity of chickens will be addressed. The
program will include discussion and hands-on opportunity to apply
skills learned using Garfield Farm Museum’s conservation flock of
the rare Black Java Chicken. Reservations for the seminar are required
and the $20 fee will include materials and lunch. Contact (630)
584-8485 or email info@garfieldfarm.org.
Owners of rare breeds of livestock and
poultry are invited to exhibit their animals at the May 18 show. As
fewer Americans farm and those that do, raise only breeds that make the
most money that the mass market demands, hundreds of breeds of
animals are facing extinction. The bright spot for these endangered
breeds is the new awareness of where or how food originates. From local
production, organics, sustainable farming, community supported
agriculture farms, the Slow Food movement, and even interest in home
textile production, members of the public are willing to pay for
quality and diversity that is generally lacking in chain stores. As a
result, individual producers find characteristics and traits in these
rare farm animals that they develop for their market niche. Different
types of sheep produce different types of wool just as different types
of hogs will produce different flavors of meat with different levels of
fat content. Hardiness, mothering abilities, disease resistance, are
all just some of the many different traits the breeds have that meet
specific economic, environmental, production, or traditional cultural
needs.
To apply to the show, contact the museum
at (630) 584-8485. Potential exhibitors are also invited to submit
topics for 20 minute lectures to be held during the show. Sheep
shearing by Loren Marceau will also be available for a fee.
Garfield Farm Museum is a 370-acre
historically intact, former 1840s Illinois prairie farm and teamster
inn that is being restored by volunteers and donors from 38 states and
2800 households as a 1840s working farm museum. It has hosted the Rare
Breeds Livestock Show and Sale since 1987 and has a conservation flock
of Black Java chickens in addition to its Narragansett turkeys, Pilgrim
geese, Merino sheep, Milking Devon oxen and the last known pair of old
type Berkshire hogs. Garfield Farm Museum is located five miles west of
Geneva, L off ILL Rt. 38 on Garfield Road.
The American Livestock Breeds
Conservancy, founded in 1977, is a non-profit membership organization
working to protect over 150 breeds of cattle, goats, horses, asses,
sheep, pigs, rabbits and poultry from extinction. It is the pioneer
organization in the U.S. working to conserve heritage breeds and
genetic diversity in livestock. For more information contact: The
American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, PO Box 477, Pittsboro, NC 27312,
(919) 542-5704, www.albc-usa.org.