In summer 2011 I spent a week at Ash End House Children’s
Farm (http://www.ashendhouse.fsnet.co.uk/). At the farm they had many different animals of which I got to work with
most of them. The animals included: Horses, Sheep, Goats, Pigs, Ponies,
Chickens, Ducks, Rabbits, Guinea Pigs and many other small bird species.
Whilst at Ash End not only did I get to spend a lot of time
seeing and working with the animals I also got to interact a lot with the
public and especially the younger children and enjoyed teaching them about the
animals. Some of my responsibilities were; supervising the rabbit and guinea
pig grooming and handling sessions, supervising the baby goat bottle feeding
sessions, the chick handling sessions and the sit on a pony sessions. During
these activities I had to answer questions from the public about the animals
they were seeing such as how old the babies were and when they would come off
the milk in the goats case.
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| Marigold |
Before the
public entered the farm in the mornings I spent the time cleaning and feeding
the animals, this gave me a good idea of what food and conditions the animals
needed, I also had the job of milking one of the goats, Marigold. She was the mother of the goat kids that were
being weaned. (She loved a good chin scratch) Another source of great amusement
for the children at the farm that kept me busy was a naughty old goat called
blackberry who would frequently steal the buckets of feed that the children
bought to feed the animals with, someone had to be on ‘blackberry watch’ all
throughout the day so we could jump into his pen and save the childs bucket! We
also had to watch out for children feeding the goat kids as the food was too
rich for their sensitive young stomachs and the children tended to ignore the
signs telling them not to feed them because come on, they’re cute! I also got to have a go at clipping the hooves
of the goat kids as they had become over grown and dirt was getting stuck in
them.
