What a brilliant day we have had down at Bland Close Farm! It was amazing to experience what it would be like to work on a real life farm! 

Farmer Grace and Farmer Danni showed us all the animals they have and all the work they need to do every single day to look after them! 

We started off by going on a nature hunt, and discussing why bushes and plants are important on the farm. We found lots of sticky weed. Farmer Danni told us this was really important on the farm and how it travels around by sticking to different animals and then dropping seeds as they move around. 

We have to take some water down to the sheep to fill up their trough. We had to carry this all the way from the farm house down to the sheep. It was very heavy! Lily and Holly didn't give up though. As they were walking down the field they said 'Teamwork makes the dream work!'.

Next we went and fed the sheep! The sheep were very friendly. We discussed the wool on the sheep and what it could be made into. What the sheep were called and the difference between a male and a female sheep. 

After that, we went to meet the cattle. We learnt that female cattle were called 'cows' and male cattle were called 'bulls'. The cattle were very big, and a little bit scary to start with, but once we started feeding them food, they were soon our friends. Farmer Danni talked to us about how cow poo was used around the farm to help crops to grow.

Bland Close Farm had a special delivery on Tuesday evening of some piglets! It was a privilege to be able to see and meet 2-day-old piglets, and talk about how long pigs were pregnant for before they gave birth (3 months, 3 weeks and 3 days!). These piglets were still too small to go and meet in the pen. However, Farmer Grace let us go in and meet the 6-week-old piglets they also have on the farm. They were very excited to have us all in their pen and loved to nibble on our wellies. Aura's were clearly very tasty for the piglets as all ten of them were nibbling at her toes! 

Before lunch, we had a very special job to do. The lambs on the farm needed feeding! We helped Farmer Grace and Farmer Dani to make up the milk. John thought the formula smelt like vanilla chocolate! The lambs drank from their bottles very quickly; they were clearly very hungry! 

After lunch, we went to see Farmer Dani's field of spring barley. She told us how she grew this to then be able to feed the cows. She even let us go and have a look at her big pile of seed that was ready to be fed to the cows. We also had a go at grinding up some seeds to make flour. Tymur said 'This is very tiring!'. 

We then went to the hatchery. We discussed how different chickens lay different eggs and how they are all different colours. Farmer Dani then talked us through the incubation process and shone a light under an egg that had been in the incubator so we could see that there was a chick developing! Farmer Grace then let us hold some chicks. They were so very small!

We had an absolutely wonderful day!