Kelsey Creek Farm Part Three: Everyone Else
Besides goat and sheep, there were many other delightful animals at Kelsey Creek Farm. Each one of them was really fun to meet. They are glorious creatures! Here are a few of the friendly farm animals:
Bunnies!
Chickens!
Geese!
A Farm Cat!
Pigs!
Oscar!
Oscar wasn't actually allowed to interact with the animals. The farm has nature trails surrounding the actual animal habitat area. Dog's can walk on the nature trails, but can't visit the animals. I am sure Oscar had fun even being in their proximity. Lots of interesting smells for Oscar to sniff.
The nature areas around the farm were quite beautiful too.
I love visiting the farm and meeting all the domesticated animals. They are curious about people and are flexible enough to consider being our friends. I learned something interesting about domesticated animals. Brain size in domesticated animals is smaller than brain size in their wild counterparts. Part of the natural selection involved in domestication of an animal creates animals with smaller brains. One particular portion of the brain is most impacted. This part of the brain is the limbic system which is 40 percent smaller in domesticated animals. The limbic system is responsible for traits such as aggression, wariness and stress response. There is a really interesting episode of Raidolab that talks about changes such as this that foxes experienced through the process of domestication.
We really owe a lot to domesticated animals. What would our society be without them? They gave us the chance to evolve into a society that can do more than just hunt and gather food. Instead of spending time running through the woods hunting deer, humans could eat the food domesticated animals provide. Domesticated animals gave us more control of our environment and gave us the opportunity to evolve into humans that could focus on things such as art and science. Now we owe it to them to give back to them. We owe it to all animals to treat them with kindness and respect!