This course is aimed at someone who is about to start out on the smallholding life and wants a general understanding about how to get up and running, choosing animals, daily life, environment such as housing, fencing and cleaning, health and medicines, and the more formal things such as Defra, record keeping and where to get help and services.

So that you get a broad picture, we cover a bit about each of the animals that we have here including goats, pigs and poultry.  You will get hands-on with the animals and birds whilst we discuss feeding, looking for signs of illness and what treatments might be appropriate, and you’ll help with some of the regular husbandry jobs such as foot clipping, ear tagging and worming injections!

Some members of your family may feel nervous around animals.  If they come along on the course, and would like some “quiet time” to help them become acquainted with the animals, we will set some special time aside to help them build a relationship and understand handling techniques. 

Our animals are extremely friendly and responsive which really helps.

If you don’t know how to start, if you are unsure whether being around animals will suit you, or if you’ve already started but want to improve the way you look at, understand and care for your animals, this is the course for you.

We’ve been there ourselves. We’ve been through the good times and the bad times. Our knowledge and experiences are put into this course to help get the most from your life “Down on the farm”.