Holcomb ? Feel free to call this home a zoo. That’s not just a figure of speech.

Ina and Jeremy Blue operate Critterland Petting Zoo, with many different types of wild animals, behind their house on eight acres of land outside Holcomb.

The Critterland barn is filled with assorted farm animals like llamas, potbellied pigs, sheep, goats, miniature horses and miniature donkeys, along with other not so common creatures, like a chinchilla (a thick-coated rodent from South America) or a coatimundi (a member of the raccoon family native to Central America).

Fortunately, these animals aren’t the only ones who have found a safe refuge in the Blue household.

Through their 12-year marriage, the Blues have taken in more than 40 foster children and currently are in the process of adopting two.

As they’ve discovered, the animals and the children essentially go hand in hand.

“Being around the animals … I realized, for the children, is an icebreaker, a tension breaker,” said Ina.

Ina Blue holds onto one of the miniature horses at Critterland Petting Zoo last month in Holcomb. The Critterland barn is filled with assorted farm animals like llamas, potbellied pigs, sheep, goats, miniature horses and miniature donkeys, along with other not-so- common creatures. The Blues also have opened their home to foster children, and say the animals help put the children at ease.

“When they first come in, they’re not told a lot about their new home.”

Showing the children all the animals is the easiest way to make them feel welcome, Ina said.

While the Blues have been planning on opening Critterland since they first moved into their home seven years ago, they weren’t able to actually start putting everything together until the beginning of the year.

“We moved in so to have more foster children and one day all the animals,” Ina said.

When they heard about an exotic animal auction taking place in Oklahoma in April, they decided the time was right.

“The biggest thing was going to see all of the things we could have at the animal auctions,” Jeremy said.

“That fired it off.”

Foster children are an especially important subject for Ina because she was once one herself.

“Before we got married, I told him I wanted foster children.” Ina said. “As I grew up, I knew it was something I was going to do. It became a way to help.”

The animals not only allow the children to feel more comfortable, they also can reinvigorate their sense of purpose.

“They feel they are taking care of something,” Jeremy said. “They’ll work hard because they’re working for the animals.”

Interacting with the creatures is a way to teach the children lessons on how to interact with people, an aspect of their life that hasn’t always been normal, Jeremy said.

“For example, with the donkeys, (I say) ‘You can yell at them, you can swat them, but they don’t respond to that,'” he said. “Kids don’t either. When we take new children to see the animals, there is always an experience. It never fails; a kid will leave the gate open, and we all have to go out and chase the animals. That gives us an experience to share and laugh about later on.”

Quiet time with the animals also can provide the children with a mental diversion, Ina said.

“Especially after visits, or after courts,” she said. “We don’t have to talk about their feelings. We can talk about the rabbit.”

Since opening in June, the Blues have given an estimated 25 tours of Critterland and hope to give several more now that the school year has started. By the end of they year, the Blues hope to open a Critterland pet store in Garden City.

The zoo and the prospective pet store are just the first of several enterprises they plan to open under the title.