Casey Farm
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Pastures & Pens

Farm Animals

Two small white rabbits with a woven basket and green hay

Casey Farm raises farm animals each season for education programs and for food. Chicks are hatched in classrooms all over the area and then return to the farm with students on their field trips. While we couldn’t possibly keep all of these chickens and some are sold for others to raise, we keep about 130 heritage breed Dominiques (the first American breed) and Rhode Island Reds (our state bird). Their eggs (when not sent to schools with incubators) are collected and sold on the farm.

Heritage breed turkeys like the Narragansett, Blue Slate, and Red Bourbon strut through the fields and sometimes all over the place. The Heritage Berkshire pigs play in their yard and roll in the mud. Pekin ducks are bred to be flightless but love to swim in a pool. These animals all have a good life with plenty of room, organic food, and attention. A part of almost every children’s program is caring for the animals. We teach that animals, even those that will end up as food, should be treated with kindness and respect.

Year-round, we keep flocks of chickens and two rabbits. The New Zealand White sisters, Luna and Lola, came to us in 2019. Our barn cat, Snapdragon, was the queen of the farm and our best PR and pest control colleague until she walked off into the sunset in 2021. She had been on the farm for more than seventeen years. We adopted two young rescue cats, Roxy and Pippin, in 2022. Enjoy looking at all these cuties in pictures and video, and see if you can find where Snapdragon was hiding.

 

Visit with the Farm Animals

Casey Farm Animals
2:05

Rhode Island Red

Rhode Island’s state bird can be seen at Casey Farm with one of the state’s best views in the background. This hen climbed on top of her coop to get a better view. The heritage breed from Little Compton, RI became popular in the late nineteenth century because of its hardiness in weather extremes, for its easygoing nature, and abundant brown eggs.

Pekin Ducklings

The Pekin breed of duck starts out in life about the size and color of a fuzzy lemon. They quickly grow in size and graduate to white feathers. Some things that never change is that the ducks like to stick together in flocks and they love the water.

Free Range Chickens

A combination of Rhode Island Red and Dominique chickens are the “layer flock” that is made up of mostly hens who each lay an egg every day or every other day. While protected by temporary fencing, they have plenty of room to search for bugs, seeds, and the cracked corn children feed them as a treat. When the ground is all scratched up by chickens, the farmers move them to fresh grass. © Beth Oram Photography 2012

Dominique Chickens

These Dominique hens are beautiful examples of the oldest chicken breed in America. Brought over the Atlantic by English colonists, they were needed for eggs, meat, and feathers for stuffing pillows. Our chickens can go in and out of their large coops as they please. Inside are poles to roost on, shavings to settle in, and brooder boxes in which to lay eggs. © Beth Oram Photography 2012.

Hot Chicks

When newly-hatched chicks are brought into our barns, they must keep warm, and heat lamps are the best way other than a mama hen to do that. These are Rhode Island Red chicks and are only a week or two old.

Ducks

Pekin ducks are bred for farms and are so heavy that they cannot fly. These are three female ducks as you can tell by their straight tail feathers. The males, called drakes, have curly tail feathers. When they are happy or drying off, both like to wiggle their tail feathers. © Beth Oram Photography 2012

Swimming Ducks

Ducks make good barnyard animals and are often seen waddling on the grass, but they need to swim to maintain their feathers and keep cool in the summertime, so our farmers provide them with kiddie pools.

Eats like a rabbit

Luna and Lola are sisters who came to Casey Farm in 2019 and delight visitors by hopping around their pen and nibbling yummy greens. New Zealand White rabbits are bred for farms and they are naturally albinos.

New Zealand white rabbit

When Luna and Lola came to Casey Farm in 2019, the farmers noticed that Lola probably is not able to see well because she waves her head to explore her environment with her hearing. She likes to burrow in her favorite bedding and food source, timothy hay.

Piglets

Casey Farm’s piglets come from Blackbird Farm in Smithfield, R.I. They are kept in a pen inside a barn until they are old enough to go outside to their large pig field. Young animals like these are often playful so our farmers give them a ball to push around but they mostly like to jostle each other.

Curious pig

The most intelligent of the farm animals, pigs are curious. They use their noses to explore and to dig in the ground for tasty morsels. © Beth Oram Photography 2012

Berkshire Pigs

Heritage Berkshire pigs are smart and curious animals who know mud will to cool them off and give some sunscreen when it is a hot day.

Barn Cat

Every farm needs a barn cat or two to keep the mouse population in check, but not every place has one that is also very fond of every person she sees. Snapdragon had lived at Casey Farm for more than seventeen years until 2021 and greeted countless people at the farm during her long kitty lifetime.

Heritage Breed Turkeys

The heritage breed Narragansett, Blue Slate, and Red Bourbon turkey flock of 2020 could easily fly out of their enclosure to investigate the farm during the daytime. They found all kinds of interesting bugs and fruits to eat in the lawns, gardens, and fields. They were very tame and cooperated well when it was time to herd them back to their coop for the evening.

Scroll down to see more
Rhode Island Red Hen
Ducklings
Chickens and Mobile Coop
Dominique Chickens
Chicks under Heat Lamp
Pekin Ducks
Ducks in Swimming Pool
Luna the Rabbit
Lola the Rabbit
Heritage Berkshire Piglets
Pig
Mudbath for Pigs
Snapdragon the Barn Cat
Turkeys loose in the garden
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Springtime on the Farm

a video by Maryelizabeth Perreira, Assistant Farm Manager
Springtime on the Farm
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Where is Snapdragon?

Tawny tabby cat lying on her back on a sunny stone wall with a heart-shaped rock adjacentSnapdragon was our resident barn cat and lived at Casey Farm for over seventeen years. Her beautiful fur blended in well with the earth, wood, and stones on the farm, so the farmers took her picture many times over the years to play “Find Snap” with each other. See if you can zoom in and find her in the gallery below.