GEE Funny Farm

For groups of 20 or less we do a presentation of 4-6 animals, giving age-appropriate information and then take the animal around for participants to pet. For larger groups, we get volunteers up to pet each animal.

For businesses, churches, etc. where a booth-type setting would be better for people stopping by, we have 2-4 handlers and rotate through the animals we have for the event, giving information and allowing the animals to be pet. There is a handler for each animal out, or a handler inside a corral if we have bigger animals.

We arrive early to set-up and clean up afterwards. We've been to birthday parties for 1-year-olds to adults, adult groups (clubs), Country Clubs for holidays, city events, graduation parties, preschools, retirement homes, etc.

All of those people have come to us, too! When you come to the farm, we have a canopy and the animals are brought to you! Often people bring party supplies or lunch and use our tables and benches after the presentation and hayride.

We love new ideas and are willing to work with planners. We love to cultivate critter I.Q.s!

The presenter, Kathy Gee, has a degree in education and has shared her love of animals since she can remember. She has had dogs, cats, chipmunks, a raccoon, and a vulpine phalanger for pets as she was growing up. She has taken classes on horse care and is working with her horse on the Parelli Natural Horsemanship program. Kathy has worked at a rehabilitation center for injured animals and some of her animals come from humane societies or rescues. She looks forward to sharing them with participants of any age.

Participants may have an opportunity to milk a goat, card (comb wool) from our sheep, llamas, or alpacas, learn how to care for a rabbit (have you trimmed nails and cleaned scent glands?), groom a horse, play an egg matching game, or a variety of other things. We have farm animals, some exotics, and some that are in the 'pet' category. When you come to the farm, we meet under a canopy with animals brought to you. When we meet at your location, we bring fencing and tarps to keep animals confined and to make cleanup easy. Our educational presentations teach about care of animals, safe practices around animals, food and fiber we get from animals, training using operant conditioning (we use a clicker), or we can do a presentation that meets your needs. Information given will be age appropriate -- we can even do a fact or fiction presentation using books and discussing what is true and what isn't.

We've also done presentations about authors and brought along animals that the author wrote about or the illustrator drew. We love new ideas!

Usually presentation and interaction with the animals takes 1-1.5 hours, depending on the interest of the participants. However, when people come to the farm, we include a hayride and people often bring lunch to enjoy after the animal presentation and hayride so the group may stay as long as 3 hours.