The last couple of weeks, we've been working hard to ready ourselves for the re-opening of The Menagerie. We had lots of projects that we wanted to finish before visitors walked through the doors, and for the most part, we accomplished the list.

Probably the biggest task on the list was getting the antique boxcar that was moved to our property last fall ready to be our gift shop. New electrical wiring, a skirting around the outside, revamped flooring, lighting, and some coats of paint in a few places were a must. Thanks to a couple of local businesses (Northwest Electric and R&R Systems) and the handyman that Jerad is along with a few other able bodies (Braylon, Brickman, and Tyler), it was presentable by opening day.

Braylon is always a great help when it comes to building projects. Give him a drill, and he knows what to do. He was great help at getting the deck built, among many other things.

Brickman is great at the smaller projects like getting the rabbit cage set up so we could bring down the mama rabbit with her babies.

And, of course, sometimes we have to take a break to test out the games. Joplin came over to help the boys with Chuck the Cluck, roping steer heads, and sliding down the slides.

Thanks to everyone who came out during our opening week of 2014! If you didn't come out this last week, you'll want to make sure to catch us on the weekends so you can see all of our changes.

The gift shop is available to purchase t-shirts and little trinkets.

We're open Saturdays from 10am to 4pm and Sundays from 2pm to 5pm. Once summer arrives, we'll expand our open days.

At the end of November when winter was upon us, we decided to give the animals a break and took a bit of a hiatus during the cold months.  Now that spring is upon us, we're back!

Our first day of the 2014 Menagerie Season is Sunday, March 16.  We will open at 2pm and close at 5pm.  Because it's Spring Break in our area, we will be open Monday, March 17 through Saturday, March 22 from 10am to 4pm.  Throughout the spring, we will be open Saturdays and Sundays and then will open with expanded days and hours during the summer season.

If you haven't been to The Menagerie, you'll want to put it on your to do list!  How often do you have the opportunity to pet a zebra or love on a camel?  If you've been before, you'll want to see our new additions and re-visit your favorites to see how they've grown!

We're working on stocking our gift shop, too!  T-shirts, among other items will be available for purchase on your visit.

Admission is $6 per person.  Each person receives a small cup of feed and additional baggies of feed are $1.  Group photos (given to you on a disc before you leave) are available for $5.  We look forward to seeing you, your friends, and family!

I never feel like summer is truly over until the last weekend in August, and it is now upon us!  Here at The Menagerie, we've made a lot of changes over the summer.  Brickman brought in babydoll sheep for his birthday in May.   Goat kids were born in May and June.  Emus and an Indu Brazilian bull were added in July.  More goat kids were born in July, which is also the month that we celebrated Indie's first birthday and we began open hours without having to make an appointment.  In August, three baby donkeys were born.  It's been a time of growth and change for us with our first summer under our belt.  We have lots of ideas of things we'd like to do, and exciting things are in store!  

What are your thoughts about The Menagerie?  We would love to hear your opinions.  Keep in mind, it's all a matter of time and money, and we are an agritourism business.  That means, we have no plans of adding any big cats, bears, or anything else that may want to eat one of our animals or visitors.  :)  

If you haven't visited us yet, we'd love to see you.  We'll be open this weekend on Saturday from 10am to 4pm and Sunday from 2pm to 6pm.

Here are a few pictures from our summer.

We currently have five bottle babies, all of them being dairy goats.  When we realize we have to take on a bottle baby, we're not normally excited.  However, once we get started, we fall in love with each of them.  They have the cutest personalities!  How cute is this milk mustache?

For Indie's birthday at the beginning of the month, we decided to try out an open day at The Menagerie. Meaning, it wasn't necessary to call for an appointment.  We loved it!  And we hope you did, too.  

We know that in today's society, with our lives being so busy that a lot of people do things on a whim.  At least that's the way that things often work in our lives!  So, we've been offering more open days.  This Saturday and Sunday, we will have open hours again!  On Saturday, you can show up to The Menagerie anytime between 10am and 4pm, and on Sunday, you can come anytime between 2pm and 6pm.  We've added a few new animals, too, so if you haven't been out in the last week, we've got new stuff for you to see!

Give us a call to come out and see the animals!  580.430.1269

Today we celebrate America!  Land that we love!  We at the Menagerie also celebrate a few more birthdays of people and an animal that we love.  My Aunt Alberta turned an amazing 90 years old today.  She is the lady that I credit my craftiness.  Many days were spent in her craft room making all sorts of goodies.  I loved those days!  She was also my Sunday School teacher, helping me learn the books of the Bible and encouraging me to recite them in front of the church.  (Thank goodness I had my cousin DaNae standing beside me reciting them, too!)  She not only taught many stories and lessons from the Bible but has truly lived by God's Word.  Such an incredible woman!  Also, our great nephew Sawyer turned 1 year old today!  He is such a sweet boy, full of smiles.  And at our petting zoo,  Indie the zebra turned one, too!  We have learned so much about zebras since we first brought him home.  For example, did you know that zebras are born with brown stripes?  As they mature, their stripes turn black.  Also, there are three types of zebras:  the Mountain, the Plains, and the Grevy's.  Indie and his friend Autumn (who also lives at The Menagerie) are Plains zebras.

We will celebrate Indie's birthday on Saturday with open hours from 10am to 6pm.  Although we are normally appointment based, no appointments will be necessary on this day.  Admission is the regular fee of $6 per person with each person receiving a small cup of feed. Free hotdogs will be served from 11:30am to 1pm and 4:30pm to 6pm.  Group photos with the zebra at our photo tree are available for $5 each and will be given to you on a disc. Give us a call at 580.430.1269 if you have any issues finding us or have any other questions.

What's your favorite type of bird?  If you're asking our son Braylon, he will say chicken.  If you're asking me (JoDe), I would say peacock.  I love how beautiful they are!  In fact, it was because I was buying peacock feathers at Hobby Lobby for decorating purposes that we originally got peacocks.  Jerad asked me why I was buying feathers when we had so many on our farm to pick up for free.  I replied to him that we didn't have any peacock feathers to pick up, so he bought a pair of peafowl.  Problem solved.  No more buying feathers at Hobby Lobby because we now have India blue and black shouldered peafowl on our farm.  

Several weeks ago we found one of our peahens sitting on a nest.  Of course, around here, you never know if the eggs that she's sitting on are actually hers or if it's another type of fowl (chicken, turkey, duck) that laid eggs that she's taken over.  As time went by, all four hatched and all four were of the peafowl variety.  Unfortunately, as often happens on a farm, not all of the peachicks survived.  However, the mama peahen has successfully kept this chick alive and is quite protective of it.  It was difficult to get close enough to get a good photo.

You can tell that the birds all hang out together.  Here we've got the peachick, peahen, a rooster, and a tom turkey.

The black shouldered peahens are mostly white in color.  If the peachick is a male, it will turn a beautiful blue color as it matures.

When we say, "Meet Rob and Big," we're not talking about a celebrity meet and greet of Rob Dyrdek and Christopher "Big Black' Boykin.  Instead, we're introducing to you our new bottle babies born May 31.  When looking for a name for new babies, sometimes it's hard, but we felt that Rob and Big just fit with these two cuties who are best buddies.  

Rob

Big 

We were certainly not looking forward to having new bottle babies since we've been bottle feeding since last July when we got our first zebra Indie and just stopped a few weeks ago when our female zebra Autumn turned seven months, but you've gotta do what you've gotta do.  (At least we got a two week break, right?) Rob and Big's mama is doing fine, she's just unable to nurse her babies, so we took over the mama role.  And when I say we, it's our kiddos that have taken on that responsibility.

There's not much that's cuter than a baby goat!

May has flown by and summer is upon us!  The last few weeks at The Menagerie were filled with field trips of all ages.  What fun!

Throughout the summer, we will continue to be open by appointment with availability on Thursdays through Mondays.  Give us a call to set up your tour at 580.430.1269.

Lots of fun things are planned for the summer, so make sure to follow us on Facebook to get the latest up to date information!