Siccardi Zoo Spawns Creative Environment

If visitors to Coenco Inc.’s headquarters in Fayetteville didn’t know Frank Siccardi was building souped-up fans, they might suspect he was building an ark.

A veterinarian and a professor of avian pathology, Siccardi and his wife Linda have a motley crew of animals at their 10-acre farm and company campus on Hughmont Road. A longhorn cow and her calf and a Labrador retriever might be the only residents of the farm that might be considered “normal” for Northwest Arkansas.

The rest of the barnyard includes:

• Two Pyrenees dogs, two Shih Tzus, a Newfoundland, an Australian shepherd and a Jack Russell.

• Nine llamas and four horses.

• A flock of exotic ducks, geese and chickens.

• An African gray parrot, a peach cockatoo, one Amazon nape, a macaw and several lorries.

The exotic birds enjoy a tropical atmosphere in the Siccardi’s indoor swimming pool area that doubles as a green house.

“It’s a jungle in there,” Siccardi said.

Siccardi is a native of Bergenfield, N.J., which sits just across the Hudson from New York City. But his family moved to St. Michaels, Md., when he was 14 to run a poultry operation, and his love for farm life and animals began. That also led to his pursuit of a pre-veterinary science degree at the University of Maryland, a veterinarian degree from the University of Georgia and a stint with poultry medication power Salsbury Labs. In the early 1960s, Siccardi even studied under Ben Pomeroy, a world renowned poultry disease specialist.

He also later landed a research scientist fellowship with the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Nigeria that was sponsored by the University of London, Michigan State University and USAID.

Upon returning to the states, Siccardi studied avian cancer diseases at the U.S.D.A.’s regional laboratory in East Lansing, Mich. There he discovered a virus in a group of birds that was developed into the first vaccine for Marek’s Disease.

He also started tinkering with his own poultry flocks, trying to decrease the spread of disease and improve climate control issues which led to the beginning of Coenco Inc.

From 1969-73, Siccardi operated the Campbell Institute for Agricultural Research in Fayetteville. He eventually traveled the world as consultant to poultry companies and growers.

“The animals just came as a spinoff from living out in the country and having space to tinker with things,” Siccardi said.

“I still do a lot of research, and often am up twice per night observing things I am working on, working with data and etc … Linda and I just kind of divide up all the chores and get to everything when we can.”

Sample Coenco Clients

Here’s a snippet of some of Coenco Inc.’s repeat customers and the size of their facilities that are served. The company has ongoing projects with most of the firms that are listed:

Company based — Facilities with whole system — SF served — Facilities with partial system

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Bentonville — 6 — 6 million — 20

Allen Canning Co., Siloam Springs — 5 — 1.5 million — 1

Tyson Foods Inc., Springdale — 2 — Not relevant — 10

Cargill Inc., Minneapolis, Minn. — 2 — Not relevant — 3

Whirlpool Corp., Benton Harbor, Mich. — 2 — 2.6 million — 1

ConAgra Inc., Omaha, Neb. — 0 — Not relevant — 2