Heritage breed farm animals are an integral part of regenerative farming at Ozark Akerz, contributing to ecological and economic health each day. Heritage breeds are old-time/traditional farm animals that had a prominent role on farms of our ancestors.

Having fallen out of favor with focus turning to industrialized farming, these historically important and resilient breeds are now endangered with extinction. This includes

• Horses
• Rabbits
• Chickens
• Donkeys
• Cattle
• Turkeys
  
• Sheep
• and other breeds…

Sometimes the story behind the photo makes it a bit more special for me. This is especially true for the selfies I attempt to get with our farm animals. The selfie above of Sue and I with our neighbors camel Sandy was to be the first of many. Being affectionate, it was actually fairly easy to get a selfie with Sandy, but that's not the case for all farm animals.

Some of the animals at Ozark Akerz, like the Cotton Patch Geese, are particularly easy to get close to. The goslings were only a few days old when we brought them to Ozark Akerz and they have firmly bonded with us as their parents. On the other hand, the Pineywoods Cattle are much more varied.  Some will allow us to scratch them (a perfect opportunity for a selfie when they approach us), others want us to stay at arms length and will swing their horns to warn us not to get too close. And yet Dave, the Pineywoods that loves a scratch more than the entire herd put together, has proven the hardest to get a selfie with.
 
The selfie challenge with Dave is that he's pushy. He will push us around and headbutt us with that big head of his to let us know he’s ready for a scratch. Once the scratching commences, his pushiness stops, but as soon as we stop scratching the pushing starts again. If we try to walk off, he’ll follow us around; more pushing and headbutting. He's not aggressive, but it's hard to concentrate on taking a photo when you're trying to keep from being inadvertently trodden on by an overly friendly 1000 lb animal!

Scroll down to view the winners!

As our long time followers have noticed, Farmer Mike loves to take pictures around the farm. Last year we started a new annual tradition, asking our community to choose their favorite photograph. Last year you chose the photo of Pineywoods Cow Peaches giving our Pineywoods Bull Rocky a bath.