On the grounds where the Feather Down Farm tents are, a special spot is reserved for children and their parents! The number and types of animals differ on each farm, depending on the activities on the farm; for example on one Feather Down farm the smaller animals are inside in the sheep pen, to protect them from the birds of prey that are very common around this farm.

In the paddock you can get to know the animals on the farm. What can be more fun than hugging a small calf. And then just standing next to the animal and being able to stroke it, without a fence or a ditch in between. A bit scary maybe, as it can make quite sudden movements, but it is wonderful to be able to be so close to nature.

And then the goats, they are also often present in the Feather Down farm paddock. Goats are not very smart animals. Or are they? It depends on how much food you are going to bring them every day. If you don’t give them anything, they will run away when you arrive. But if you give them some old bread, potato peelings or leftovers from the vegetables every day, then they will recognize you within a day and greet you with a loud Baaaaa, when you enter the paddock.

The farmer sometimes also uses the goats and sheep as a mowing machine. They keep the grass around the Feather Down Farm tents nice and short and they also like nibble of the weeds. With their droppings they fertilize the field and then the grass grows again. Handy isn’t it? And it does not use any energy, they do it automatically the whole day long.

Then there are also chickens around the Feather Down farm. Sometimes in a henhouse, but often also together with the other animals in the paddock. The advantage of chickens is that they lay eggs. You would expect that, just as other birds, they first build a nest. Well they don’t. Most eggs are laid in the henhouse, on the straw or hay in a corner of the pen. But often you find an egg outside, just like that. When the rabbits in the paddock try to dig a hole and they cannot manage to do so, they try it again in another spot. In the small pit which the rabbits have made, the chicken than lays her egg. She probably thinks that it is a special spot to lay her egg. If you find an egg, then you can take it with you to the tent. Nice to fry, or to boil or mix in with the pancake batter. Eggs from the farm always taste a lot better than eggs from a box in the shop. That is because these eggs at a Feather Down farm are laid accidentally and not on purpose. And you can taste the difference.

Below is an essay from David after a Feather Down farm visit;

At the end of the afternoon, on the children’s farm there were goats, chickens, a cockerel and a few rabbits. The farmer’s wife told us that we could take an egg from the henhouse. And what we then saw….. an entire nest full of baby rabbits. Nine of those small orange fidgeting rabbits, which were all lying, with their eyes closed, in the nest of feathers and soft belly-hair of their mother. You could clearly see who the mother was. The father only became clear after a little while, when it turned out that the baby rabbits did not have floppy-ears. The farmer’s wife gave clear instructions; ‘you can look, but not touch the rabbit-nest. Because the nest will then smell of human hands and then mother rabbit will no longer want to have anything to do with her young ones’. Of course we only watched, hanging over the edge of the henhouse, because we could not get enough of it.

After two weeks we came back. Of course we immediately looked over the edge in the henhouse. Most of the baby rabbits were asleep. But one had its eyes open. And they had grown incredibly. By now, during the day they leave the nest and run around the children’s farm behind each other. They are not at all scared of the chickens and the goats. Just playing, all day long.