Barnyard petting farm, Celina Record

Petting farm brings visitors close to barnyard favorites Lisa Ferguson, lferguson@starlocalmedia.com Mar 11, 2016 Despite the explosive growth that Celina is experiencing, the city – at least for now – is still home to a good many cows, horses and other barnyard animals. Opportunities to get up close and personal with such critters, however, can prove surprisingly rare. “You can see them on every corner in Celina, but they’re going to be across a barbed-wire fence on private property. … They’re not tame, they’re not friendly to people, they’re kind of skittish and scared,” explained Rick Kimbrell, owner of Preston Trail Farms. The large general store, located at 15102 TX-289 in Gunter, opened last year. The shelves on one side of the store brim with all types of hardware, garden supplies, animal feed and related products, while the other side houses a boutique filled with caps, t-shirts, toys and such. There is also a café where the menu boasts down-home breakfast and lunch staples daily, and an all-you-can-eat catfish special on Fridays and Saturdays. The place drew crowds last fall to its Big Orange Pumpkin Farm, which was relocated to the property after nearly two decades as a seasonal destination in Celina. Also out back, in an expansive open-barn structure, live dozens of animals that comprise Preston Trail’s petting farm, which is open year-round to the public. The petting farm was also relocated last year to Preston Trail Farms from the former pumpkin farm. Kimbrell founded it years ago on his family’s 30-acre Celina spread. “I had a few cows. I had goats and a donkey. I had a couple of horses,” he said. He also had barnyard pens which he situated “to make it easy for people to walk back and forth in front of,” and handfeed the animals during the several weeks each year that the pumpkin farm was open for business. These days, Kimbrell keeps about 80 goats and lambs at Preston Trail Farms, along with a handful of chickens and roosters, a few steer and about 50 head of cattle. Among the favorite critters of visitors to the farm are the dozen Nigerian dwarf goats, which are smaller than other breeds. There are also a few fluffy angora goats on property. The goats are generally the first to greet visitors of the petting farm. They climb clumsily over one another and stand on their hind legs along the pen’s perimeter, bleating loudly in hopes of snagging morsels from small bags of animal feed that visitors can purchase in the general store. “I like the goats,” said 16-year-old Chris Luhrs, who visited the farm for the first time last week with his mother, Melissa Luhrs, and younger siblings Emily and Benjamin. Over the years, Kimbrell said, several of the farm’s inhabitants have become family pets, including a large steer named TAKS whose tenth birthday will be celebrated next month with a party. Unlike the animals people see while driving past what farmland remains in Celina, he said the members of his menagerie are very social creatures. “We can walk right up in the middle of these (pens) and they’ll eat out of your hand,” Kimbrell said. “They understand what people walking up to the fence means – it means it’s time to eat.” Follow the Celina Record on Twitter @celinarecord.