Oohs and aahs down on the farm
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by Cliff Miller
Correspondent for The Capital Times OREGON-–There was a whole lot of petting going on in the big barn. And gawking and oohing and ahhing and rediscovering roots long ago abandoned for city pavement where few animals are even allowed. More than 100 vehicles lined both sides of Schuster road on a mild Sunday afternoon. Their first hint that this was a real farm was the mud, the most common commodity on the farm in spring. Adults and kids negotiated standing water and oozing mud to make their way up the driveway to the birthing barn of A-Z Sheep Farm just east of U.S. 14. "We really do want to give people an educational experience," said Ray Antoniewicz, who with his wife, Alice, owns and operates the place. Every spring and summer the farm is open to visitors, who on Feb. 19 got to watch sheep shearing and are invited on three Sundays in March, including Easter, to see newborn lambs and even see some being von if the timing is right. Inside the sprawling barn, adults and kids of all ages shuffled along the hard boards between where small pigs peered up curiously at the strangers and a big black and white turkey gobbled agreeably when spoken to. An open cage of yellow and spotted balls of fluff allowed themselves to be held and petted under a sign, "Baby Chicks for Sale or Rent." At the end of a long corridor, Chris Nass, who runs Revival Ranch near New Glarus, preached earnestly about endangered livestock and fowl and the need to preserve a host of breeds that he said are rapidly vanishing from American farms. He sold turkey eggs for hatching and colored chicken eggs, brown and green and blue, products of normal chickens that refuse to observe the supermarket preference for ordinary white. Among dozens of kinds of chickens, only those with white earlobes lay white eggs, he said. A pony obligingly stuck its snoot through an opening in the wire mesh enclosing its stall to allow visitors to stroke and admire it. Baby ducks got petted and held in small hands. |
 Newborn lambs are the star attraction at the A-Z Sheep Farm near Oregon. But the big show was in the other direction, in the big open part of the barn. Freshly shorn sheep were having babies and showing off those that had been born in the past few days. Each ewe wore a number in colored dye on its hide and ear tags and the same number. Lambs, each dyed and eartagged with its mother's number, nursed or dozed in the straw. An ewe was plumply pregnant one moment and in the next instant had discharged three wet and startled lambs onto the straw as visitors watched in amazement. A woman in a ski jacket and jeans began rubbing the babies with a towel to remove blood and birthing fluids, while the mother did her share with her tongue. <<1 | 2 >> Next |
