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Farmers John’s Walk

John will take you on a guided tour of the working farm; you will hear all about the farm animals, learn more about the crops that are grown and the diet of the animals. You’ll also see the large farm machinery, the tractors and automatic feed machines. You’ll also have the opportunity to ask John any thing you have ever wanted to know about the countryside and farming.

Spinney Field - The Hen Coop

In the Spinney field you will find the hen coop with a flock of free range hens. The hens need watering and feeding every day; one or two families are generally nominated as the hen monitors; it is their responsibility to feed and water the hens daily. The most important part of caring for the hens is making sure that they are let out of the hen house in the morning, and at dusk to shut in the house for bedtime. The enjoyable part of looking after the hens is collecting their fresh eggs, and it’s always a lovely surprise to collect a freshly laid egg from the nesting box. It’s important to remove the eggs from the nesting boxes every day. The hens will provide you will endless amusement as you watch them on their travels!

Goats

The most important part of the farm is the goats. A playful gang, they are all bred from the best of three British breeds: Saanen, Toggenburg and Alpines. Goats are very affectionate, intelligent animals, endearing and inquisitive.

Four times a year we rear groups of baby ‘kids’, caring lovingly for them from a few days old until they reach their playful 'teenage' stage at around eight weeks old. They flourish together with their friends, living and playing in small groups, growing up in their 'teen' accommodation until they are nine months old. Sometimes we sell goats at this age, known as 'goatlings' on to other goat farms. We also have a small pedigree herd of hard working male, Billy goats. We are often asked why Billy goats smell like old socks, it’s because they have musk glands behind their horns to make the girls chase after them!

Milking Goats

The goats are milked twice a day every day, that’s 365 days a year! Morning milking starts early, the goats start to wake up and once they hear Farmer John say good morning and they begin to walk to their pen gates. The goats are milked in separate groups and each group makes their way into the collecting pen and patiently wait their turn to come into the individual milking pens.

Each goat gets a treat whilst they are being milked and this encourages them to trot in nicely. The two milking units are placed onto the goat’s teats and the milking process begins, on average it takes 3 minutes to milk each goat.

Evening milking begins at 3pm; the optimum milking time between each session is twelve hours; each milking session takes about two and half to three hours including the wash down and parlour cleaning process. The parlour is a computerised rapid exit milking parlour with 36 stations; the electronic ear tag on each goat triggers the individual computerised record for each and every goat.

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