My name is Grant and I live at Western Connection Ranch on Cty. K in Rhinelander. We have a lot of cool animals. We have horses, cows, ponies, donkeys, chickens, peacocks, rabbits, two cats and turkens. Yes, you read that right; I said turken, T-U-R-K-E-N.

If you’re wondering what a turken is, it is a European chicken also referred to as Naked Necks. When we first got them, we thought they were a turkey chicken mix, but we went on the internet and found out that they are European chickens. They are usually used for food, but we just keep them as pets. They lay eggs that we hatch to raise more turkens.

I have to do some chores every now and then during the school year, but I have to do chores every day that I’m there in the summer. It’s fun though. I get paid for everything I do. My least favorite chore is watering the horses because the hose gets all wet and then it gets dirty and it gets all over my clothes. I like feeding the birds. It’s funny how they beg for food. They eat a lot for birds. It is funny how the male peacock takes a piece of bread and runs away. One time he grabbed a pork chop and ran away. What I’ve learned is that birds are greedy when it comes to food.

We have a lot of horses too. Most of them are nice. Sometimes they get crabby like humans do. They’re all nice every now and then, but like I said, they can get very crabby. They pin their ears back and sometimes they nip at you.

I’ve never been bitten, but one horse has tried. He’s our halter horse and he’s the crabbiest. Halter horses are ones that we show. It’s in their nature to be crabby because they’re so big. If they’re not biting at humans, they’re biting at each other.

We also have cows. We have two adults and two calves. We raise bulls for meat, keep the cows around to breed and sell the calves.

The most exotic animals we’ve had are peacocks. We have many peacocks right now. We are trying to breed them during the summers. We had a lot of eggs, but only five hatched. Of these five, two survived. We still have the two who are almost a year old. They grow much slower that chickens, and are about the size of a regular chicken right now.

I’ve been surrounded by animals all my life. I have learned a lot about animal behavior. Sometimes they seem like they talk to each other. They seem to act like humans more often than not.