Week 2 Ash End House Children's Farm

 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.

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.

Kids

I spent two of my days working in the stable section of the farm and got to spend time mucking out and grooming the horses including a huge shire called Sammy. On the hour every hour I could go help with the ‘chick chat’ where the children could stroke the baby chicks and then make their way to the ponies where they could have the chance to sit on a pony and give it a groom. For this I had to be confident with the horses and make sure they behaved especially if there was a nervous child on the back of it. The pony that I was in charge of  was a small pit pony named star, he was a bit bad tempered and I had to be firm with him to keep him standing still and behaving but it did make the kids laugh when he stood on my toes…numerous times, thank god for steal capped wellies ehy!

Talking of naughty animals, another one of my jobs was feeding and watering the sheep and two of the lambs Dennis and Knasher really lived up to their names, they must’ve escaped about 3 times in the week I was there and on a hot summers day chasing a pair of twin lambs around a farm is not fun!

Cleaning out the birds was a new experience for me, I didn’t realise quite how skittish they were, so many times I would turn round and jump out of my skin when a turkey comes running towards me, the ducks and chickens were slightly more relaxed and the ducks loved having their pond cleaned out.

8 Week old rabbit

I couldn’t have picked a better week to work at the farm it was a lovely warm summers week and there were new sets of baby rabbits, guinea pigs and pigs out. During the rabbit and guinea pig handling sessions I got to get the 8 week old babies out into little baskets and hand them round the children for them to stroke, and of course I had lots of cuddles!

I really loved my week at the farm, I got to meet a lot of interesting people that knew a lot about the animals and I also got a chance to share my knowledge of the animals with members of the public, it really helps to see and work with a range of animals and see what kind of husbandry is required for each one. There were also some new experiences such as seeing a goat with mastitis and not to mention milking a goat! I learnt a lot about horses after working with the stable girl for a couple of days too, I’d not really been around horses much so working with her and them she showed me how to groom them and what feed they had and why like sugar beet soaked in water for energy. All in all it was an interesting week of hard work and really hands on with the animals which is something I really enjoyed and hope I get to do a lot more of.