By JOHN RAFFEL, The Clare Sentinel
LAKE – Martin’s Family Fun Ranch is in its second season and Mike Martin is excited over the business’ potential.
It’s located at 11403 Clareola Ave. in Lake.
The facility is owned by Mike and his wife Elise Martin.
“We started out taking in animals from people,” Martin said. “We put together plans for the petting farm. We have construction going on until 2012. At the end of 2012, everything will be completed on time. We would have an educational petting arm which schools can come to year ’round.
“We’re going to start getting into a big variety of animals. We have some exotic animals right now. Right now it’s mostly farm animals. We do have emus, llama, jacob sheep, mini-pigs. We have construction starting in the spring, possibly this fall. When the building goes up, we’ll have our exotic petting farm.”
The facility will then be licensed by the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) as a certified exotic petting farm, Martin said.
“We’ll be bringing in red kangaroos, desert tortoises, alpacas, and wallabies,” he said. “It’s a never ending variety. We have ponies, we have donkeys. We have a variety of geese, chickens, ducks, there’s a lot to this.”
