Alice and Ray Antoniewicz are retired. About seven years ago Ray left his job as state horse specialist for UW-Extension, and Alice was a nursing supervisor at St. Marys Hospital until a year ago.
The couple have four children who live int eh Oregon area, plus five grandchildren. The farm is very much a family operation; the children all help out, especially this time of year.
The couple's grown children were always bringing friends to see the animals, and they spotted an opportunity to share their experience with others.
"There's a whole lot of people who have never been on the farm," said Alice. "We are three generations removed from the farm. Ask many elderly people, and they'll say they have never been on a farm.
"(The lambs) are very comical–they play a lot and it's a lot of fun to watch them. They climb, they hop, they jump, they ruin–they're very funny little creatures."
A-Z Farm does not administer antibiotics or hormones, Antoniewicz said.
"When the grass grows, the moms and babies go out, and that's what they live on. They eat little grain, and mostly hay in the winter months," Alice said. "We try to raise the lambs on mom's milk. We raise the animals as humanely as possible and take as good care of them as we possibly can."
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The Antoniewiczes have about 100 eyes and four rams, Alice said. For their own purposes and for visitors' entertainment, they have two pigs, a laying flock of a dozen chickens, four turkeys, some ducks and a bunch of baby chicks. They borrow baby goats from a neighboring farm that milks dairy goats, and two calves are borrowed as well.
For those who aren't farm savvy, some basics: A lamb is a baby sheep, and the are labeled such until 1 year of age. The eye is the female; the ram is the male. The gestation period is five months. Lambs that are born now may stay to replace some of the older eyes; the others are later sold for breeding stock and as freezer lambs. Most of the lambs go to local residents, but the Antoniewiczes take some as far as Milwaukee. The wool is turned into yarn, blankets and other materials.
About two dozen pregnant eyes remain at A-Z Farm, Antoniewicz said, so there's a good chance visitors who come on Sunday–the last open farm day of the season–will witness a birth.
Newborns stay with their mother in a small pen separate from the others for 24 hours, then are vaccinated and tagged. They are moved into the first larger pen, where they learn to
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