OLE MCMORRIS' EXOTIC FARM

Linda Pepple keeps two camels at the Schlosser farm, Denver, left, and Crystal.

An ostrich greeted a visitor

An American bison strolled the farm.

Some of the pets are not quite so exotic, like these turkeys that paused in the sunshine.

Morning comes early on the farm. Grab a bite of breakfast, head out the back door, it's feeding time.

Expectant nickers or deep lowing might greet the early risers when they are first spied.

When Scott County crop and cattle farmers Maurice and Margie Schlosser step out their back door, they're just as likely to be greeted by the squawk of peacocks.

In a field at one side of their shady patio and lawn, llamas, fallow deer and fainting goats mingle with aoudad sheep and turkeys. At the rear and left of the Schlosser home, miniature Hereford cattle, bison, camels and ostriches are among the exotic breeds anticipating their care giver's appearance every morning.

Though the Schlossers have some 18 species of exotic animals on their farm near Kelso, most mornings Maurice Schlosser has the animals tended in about an hour. After all, there's plenty of other work waiting on the land he farms with sons Randy and Tim.

But Schlosser might linger just a tad when he's seeing to the ostriches or the young camels near the barn on the rise behind his and Margie's home. There, green fields slope gently into the horizon and elk graze contentedly on tender grasses encircling a lake.

"There's nothing any prettier on this earth than an elk," Maurice Schlosser said one recent morning.

"He's always loved animals," Margie Schlosser said of her husband, while a fainting goat named Lynette sniffed curiously at the strangers talking with her familiar farmers. "She was our first female fainting goat," Margie Schlosser said. "She has twin babies every year. We have to bottle feed them."

A neighbor and friend of the Schlossers', Linda Pepple, standing nearby, outlined the characteristics and origins of many of the exotic animals. Pepple, who has worked extensively with exotic breeds, helps to tend the animals.

She also has two camels -- one of which is expecting -- at the Schlosser farm. The pregnant camel is white, one of only about a dozen white camels in the United States, Pepple noted.

The number and variety of exotic animals the Schlossers own belies their years of involvement with exotic breeds. It was just some seven or eight years ago Maurice Schlosser, on the spur of the moment, purchased his first unusual animals -- five fallow deer -- at a local exotic animal auction.

It wasn't long before the Schlossers attended another sale and came away with a pair of ostriches. There's plenty of good-natured bantering between the husband and wife about that purchase. Margie Schlosser chuckles when she explains she left her husband's side for just moments and returned to find herself an ostrich owner. Her husband grins and agrees that that's just about how it happened.

An exotic animal auction is scheduled for Saturday and Sunday at the Fruitland Livestock Sales, he said.

"It's a hobby," Maurice Schlosser said of the menagerie on three sides of his brick home. "We've kept adding a little bit every year."

But business aspects have naturally evolved. As the herds increase, "sometimes I have to sell some of them, because you can't keep them all," he said. The Schlossers have experienced the growing interest in ostriches as alternative livestock. They sell ostrich chicks and laying pairs. Margie Schlosser oversees ostrich egg hatching and care of the chicks.

Bison grazing near the house also spark plentiful potential-buyer inquiry, the farm owner said. The Schlossers have recently agreed to loan a baby buffalo to the St. Louis Zoo for use in the children's park.

Maurice Schlosser explained that it's the enjoyment that others, particularly children, get from seeing the unusual animals that brings him greatest satisfaction. People often drive slowly by the home with the sign "Ole McMorris' Farm" on the lawn, sometimes stopping to take pictures. "I enjoy people coming, but I don't want them in the pens," he said.

The light-hearted farm name was derived by chance. One day someone asked, "Where's ole McMorris?" Margie Schlosser said. "I thought that fit well."

The family home is a natural gathering place for friends and the Schlosser children, Randy, Tim, Sandy and Kathy, along with sons-and-daughters-in-law and six young grandchildren.

Dull moments are rare on Ole McMorris' Farm. Content exotic animals meander through the fields adjacent the busy household.

"This house is bustling all the time with people," Margie Schlosser said with a smile that showed she wouldn't have it any other way.