The farm is a sensory experience with smells to accompany the bleating, mooing, neighing and oinking! A walk through the farm gives you the opportunity to meet the animals ranging from guinea pigs to alpacas, goats and cows, to ferrets and horses.You can walk into our small animals enclosure where you can get close up to our chickens and rabbits and with opportunities to handle the smaller animals and visit our Ecology garden. Or simply watch the animals grazing in the paddocks or a riding lesson in the school arena.
With information points and our committed volunteers, we make
everyone’s experience of the animals as positive and interactive as possible. As you carry on through the farm you reach the duck pond and the community garden.
The community dye garden has a variety of vegetables and plants, which are grown to produce natural dyes by the ‘Spinners’ group, and shared with the SLAM Horticultural project, whose participants grow vegetables and plants as a means of personal healing.
Our daily chores include mucking out all of our stables, feeding, watering and haying those 80 hungry mouths; in addition to monitoring the health of our animals with hoof trimming, halter training, worming etc. Vauxhall City Farm has cows, goats, alpacas and rare breed sheep which have faced extinction in the UK and we are active in participating in annual animal shows. Even today there are farm animal breeds in England that are more at risk than Rhinos and Tigers!!
Like any farm, and with all those tasks to complete Vauxhall City Farm has an active Volunteering programme all year round. The farm facilitates guided 'Talk tours' and as an activity for children's birthday parties. With an active 'Outreach Programme' we can bring the farm to you!!
In recent years we have developed ‘Corporate Challenges’ activities, working with business sector groups, teams of participants have built and created for example: the duck viewing platform. We are always grateful for the support of the companies and welcome the opportunity to work with other companies.
For more information regarding the farm, please get in touch with our Farmyard Manager, Tom Davies on 0207 582 4204.
photo-credit(C)Neil Young
