Our Home Educator Day at the Farm – By Evie Wand

Hi, my name is Evie, I am 12 years old and I am home educated. My family and I have White Post Farm annual passes so we get to go to the farm lots which is amazing.

This week we went to the home educator’s day at the farm and it was really fun. This is what we did…

We started in the silver barn to see the lambs and kids and feed the guinea pigs with our veg pots. Most of the guinea pigs weren’t very hungry because they had just been fed.

I got to hold a pygmy goat called Badger and a golden guernsey kid, they were really cute. One of the Grey Faced Dartmoor lambs kept bouncing up to peek over the fence, how adorable!

We stopped off for the meerkat feed and talk, I found out that meerkats have two sets of eyelids.

I always look forward to seeing one of my favourite animals at the farm, Willow, the albino Burmese python, she is about 14ft long. We usually see her curled up like a massive cinnamon roll either on the floor or on her rock.

My Dad loves the poison dart frogs in the reptile house. You can always spot them really easily because they’re bright blue.

Next we went back to the silver barn to do the whose wool investigation. They had laid out three types of sheep wool and some alpaca wool as well. You had to look at and a feel the different wools and guess based of the pictures on the table whose wool was whose. The wool felt soft but also oily, that’s because of the lanolin, a natural oil the sheep and alpacas have in their wool that lets it repel water. You’ll find lanolin in most moisturisers.

After that we went to look at the sheep shearing which was really cool. We watched them separate a small group of sheep then one by one shear them. They have to be really careful around the eyes, mouth and tail or they could injure the sheep. When they’re getting the sheep into the right position to shear them it looks like they’re being really rough but that’s what they have to do to make sure the sheep can’t get free and accidentally hurt themselves.

Then we stopped to get lunch I had chilli and my mum had lasagne it was really good!

When we had finished lunch we managed to get to the end of the Armadillo feeding talk, I’m hoping to do the Armadillo experience for my 13th birthday.

After that we had a walk round the outside paddocks. We saw two absolutely adorable Cameroon lambs hiding from the rain under a tree. We also saw the Mangalica pigs Erika and Ethel. They came really close to the fence and followed us as we walked. Then we saw the cows and some more pigs. It was really funny when the pig ran because their ears kept flopping in front of their eyes with every step it took. We also saw sheep poking their heads out of the shelter which looked kind of funny.

Then before we left we had a quick go on the go karts and one last visit to the silver barn where I got to stroke an adorable week old pygmy goat. It was so tiny, my hand was almost bigger than its head.

To say I had an amazing day is an understatement. I really had a lot of fun and I love how friendly all the farmers are, they are always willing to answer the many, many questions I always have! Thank you White Post Farm for yet another brilliant day, I can’t wait for the next home ed day!

A few extra photos of the other animals we got to see and love visiting at the farm.