The new school year starts in September and lots of our young pre school visitors will be starting big school for the first time. It is an often stressful time for Mum and her little one. We at Pigeons farm will miss their mid week visits as we have watched them progress from toddlers to the present school age. We have enjoyed seeing the little toddler who is shy of the animals gain confidence and knowledge as they have got to know our animals and indeed Farmer Bob and the staff at our farm. Little Josef who on his first visit to Pigeons Farm, had Sidney, the big chestnut horse lick the top of his head. This experience made such an impression on three year old Josef that he now has to find Sidney to give him a pat, on his regular visits with his grandparents. Josef starts school this term but we hope to see him on future visits.A good way to keep in touch is to use our Cuddle and Bounce event. Visit the farm after school from 3.30pm - 5.00pm for just £2.50 per person (under 3's free of course).This is an ideal opportunity to visit the animals and have a quiet cuddle and then burn any excess energy off by a bounce  on the Jumping Pillow.Mum can enjoy a tasty coffee and why not have a slab of malteser cake too? We don't serve hot meals after about 2.30pm but on Fridays we shall be serving hot teas like sausage and chips and chicken nuggets and chips with beans. Great end of the week treat! This is also a good way of entertaining your childrens friends too!    

We are thrilled announce that after our kitchens were inspected by Peterborough City Council and we have been awarded 5*'s for a well managed spotless kitchen.Amy Smith our chef, assisted by Dawn Thoburn not only cook delicious meals and cakes but also take great pride in keeping everything sparkling clean-Thankyou to both of them.

We have also changed the coffee we serve and now serve delicious bean to coffee drinks like Latte, cappucino and Americano. Everyone says it's a big improvement. We have added a Luxury Hot Chocolate with marsh mallow, cream and Fudge sprinkles-very decadent!

More people are taking advantage of 'Cuddle and Bounce'. Now you are saying to yourself- whatever is that? Well,in term-time we know that when you pick the children up from school, sometimes you just want to give them an hour or so of fun , but you don't want to pay full entrance fees at that time of the day. We charge £2.50 per person-from 3.30-5.00pm, so the children can come and cuddle the rabbits and guinea pigs, then play on the Jumping Pillow , Gobots , pedal tractors or climb the bales have an ice-cream or picnic box tea (please order on arrival)piece of home-made cake or maybe a glass of frozen Refresh fruit juice. A great end to the school day!

The weather is getting warmer at last and the sheeps' fleeces are very thick and heavy after a cold winter.Today the New Zealand sheep shearers arrived to shear the ewes and Bruno the ram.They bring a mobile shearing station and in no time at all the fleeces are off and the sheep look so different!A few of our visitors were lucky enough to be here and watch the woolly fleeces being removed.

We don't shear this years lambs as their coats are not thick enough-they will be done next year.The shearers turn the sheep over to clip them and this makes the sheep unable to struggle. 

New arrivals!

We now have five little lambs here who need to be bottle-fed as they don't have Mummys to look after them.A local Farmer has asked us to look after them and we wondered if anyone would like to help us to bottle-feed them each day ?As they are orphans they need lots of cuddles too! Anyone who has been to the farm recently will know that we had one orphan lamb from our own sheep and its nice to know he has some company now.If you would like to help, Farmer Bob will be feeding them at 11.00am and again at 3.00pm each day , until they are strong enough to cope without milk, which will be several weeks time. 

It was a cold weekend for the Bank Holiday but it remained dry here so we were much luckier than some places.We still had lots of fun though, despite the cool wind.Lots of children took part in the Face Painting, with butterflies, ducks and witches amongst some of the designs chosen by the children.

We ran a competition to name some of our animals-which kept everyone quite busy.They had to search for animals that matched the photographs and put a name to them.The prize for naming them drawn out of the hat at the end of the day was Emma Goodes from Peterborough. She has won a Family Day Ticket to use for another visit to Pigeons Farm. Well done Emma!

Well, the new piglets are growing really well and are so cute.Beatrice is a very good Mummy and is proud to show her babies off to everyone!

On Saturday evening we were a bit surprised when one of our Hebridean sheep gave birth to twins.We didn't think any of them were pregnant so it was lovely to see these dear little lambs in the paddock.

We have new arrivals in the petting barn with baby rabbits and guinea pigs being born.

The big horses, Cello and Sydney,are living outside at the moment in the big field.They have spent the winter, in at night and out in their thick warm rugs during the day.Soon , when it gets hot they will come in during the day and out at night, when it is cool .So now they are enjoying the Spring grass.Unfortunately, the ponies have to be stabled most of the time so they do not get laminitus. This is a very painful 'fever of their feet' that is caused by eating too much grass.That is the reason why , when they do go out, it is onto a quite bare paddock with little grass.

For the Easter Holidays we have introduced our new Gobots and what a lot of fun they are!You can hear the squeals of laughter coming from the arena as the water fights take place. Don't worry Mum, it's not very wet- just great fun! There is also an electric car for that first driving lesson!

Great excitement last night, when Beatrice, our youngest Gloucester Old Spot pig presented us with six gorgeous spotty piglets! We hadn't realised until about a week ago that she was gaining weight around her mid-riff and probably had a little secret. They are all perfect and quite chubby little things. Farmer Bob sat with her while she gave birth, to make sure she didn't lay on them, which they can do sometimes.

We had some wonderful entries in the Easter Bonnet competition, quality but not quantity!Prizes were awarded to -Birth to 2 years Joseph Jolley and Harrison Rippon and 6-10 years Francesca Jolley and Jennifer Brawn. One of the bonnets,worn by Harrison Rippon depicted Pigeons Farm and has been presented to us to keep in Reception for all to see-fabulous!

After the weather forcasters predicted bad weather for the Easter weekend, things haven't turned out too bad at all with lots of families arriving at the Farm and having a great time.The Egg hunts have kept the children amused, with nice little Easter treats to take home afterwards.They had to find the hidden eggs and collect them in their baskets-great fun! The Gobots are causing quite a stir, with loud shrieks coming from the arena as the children fire the water pistols at each other.

As I write this, it is Saturday evening and we still have Sunday and Monday to look forward to. There will be more butter-making tomorrow and of course the Easter Bonnet competition.There will also be more egg hunts to take part in.We have had baby guinea pigs born and there are some baby rabbits, although we can't see them yet! There are three lambs still in the barn, the rest are out in the paddock.

Well what a fabulous weekend we had here to celebrate the arrival of Spring and Lambing!

We started on Saturday with some of the new lambs out in the lamb field and some younger ones still in the Big Green Barn.A few more ewes are still to lamb -not long now.

In the Educational Room some Maran chicks were starting to hatch and the children could watch them through the window of the incubator.Also throughout the day visitors could try their hand at butter-making which was great fun.

Out in the camping field, Michael had very kindly brought his huge Combine Harvester and two John Deere tractors and a seed drill so that anyone who wanted to could climb in them and pretend to drive. It wasn't just the children who climbed into the driving cabs but lots of Dads too!

Throughout Saturday and Sunday, Farmer Bob was busy, in between showing the lambs to the children,giving tractor and trailer rides around the farm.

Star of the weekend was the arrival ,on Sunday, from Tractorland of TRACTOR TED. He parked himself beside the big combine harvester and small as he seemed he was swamped by hoards of excited children. They climbed onto him and he loved all the attention!As a reward the children received balloons and stickers.There was a treasure hunt  of Tractor Ted clues.The sun shone all day and the hundreds of children who came to the farm made the most of all that was on offer. What a GREAT day!

Well, the sun came out yesterday and we were so pleased to welcome so many to the Farm. At lunchtime our visitors were able to see the birth of twins to one of our ewes. It was a slightly difficult birth as one lamb was breech(coming out bottom first) but Farmer Bob was on hand to help her.One of the lambs is quite small and the ewe was pushing it about a bit and not letting it feed,so we brought it into the kitchen last night to keep it warm by the aga and we fed it every three hours over-night. This morning it is much stronger and was escaping from the  box it spent the night in! After a gambol round my kitchen we are trying to get it back with Mum! If she will accept it- all well and good, but if not, we shall rear it by bottle feeding it and maybe our visitors will be able to help. We always end up with a few who need hand- rearing , which is a bit like having new babies , with feeds every 3/4 hours at the start.

Spring must be here! We have had three sets of twin lambs born during the night and all seem to be doing well.I think the ewes must have seen the weather forcast as it it is a glorious sunny morning here at Pigeons Farm.Lambing was not due to start until Friday, so it's very exciting here this morning. It's always wonderful when a new baby animal is born, especially if it is fit and well.

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March 14th Mother's Day (Book for lunch)

March 20th/21st Lambing Weekend. Weekend packed with lots of fun. Help feed orphan lambs with bottles.Possibly watch a lamb being born.-Visit by TractorTed! Other farm machinery will be on site for the children to see and possibly sit on!.There will be tractor and trailer rides around the farm.See forthcoming events.

One of our naughty hens has been hiding a nest of eggs in the barn. She has managed to hatch six chicks, which is quite surprising for this time of the year! We have now moved them into the safety of the rabbits' and guinea pigs' barn, where she is safe from Mr. Fox!!

What a beautiful Autumn we are having. The sun seems to shine every day with no rain.This might not suit everyone but we think it is lovely to be able to be outside in the fresh air enjoying the farm before the colder weather comes.We have been busy improving our indoor facilities. We have moved the climbing bales and added a tunnel and slide. We now have an indoor surface for the pedal tractors plus of course the sand-pit and playhouse.There are picnic tables  for Mum to enjoy a coffee and chat.

The breeding season is over until the Spring for most animals but we have six gorgeous Giant French Lopp baby bunnies. Anyone who has been to the farm and has seen Digger the Daddy will remember how soppy he is.

 We had a fun Bank Holiday weekend to finish off the summer holidays.Crowds arrived to enjoy the hands-on activities and once again we had the fantastic climbing wall.Rob and his team from The Outstanding Events Company really gave everyone a lot of fun including our chef Amy and her assistant Zoe, who both decided to have a go after they had finished in the kitchen.

Latest new arrivals.Our new black giant French Lopp rabbit  has given birth to a litter of babies but we don't know how many yet .

Bank holiday weekend we hatched off some Brahma chicks after trying for a year to get fertile eggs. These chicks have fluffy legs and are very pretty.

On the pond we have at least forty ducklings and three goslings. The goslings are being reared by a couple of brown hens and it is so funny to watch when the goslings go for a swim and mother hen is left on the bank clucking! The ducklings are getting quite tame and come up to the fence to be fed.

Well. we had lots of entrants in our naming competition and lots of wonderful suggestions.The winning name is JACKO and this was suggested by Charlie Ford  of Peterborough. A Family Day ticket is on its way!As he was born on the day Michael Jackson (Jacko) tragically died this is quite apt. 

Jacko is doing very well and at the moment he has three other donkeys with him in the field, one of them being Hansel, his Father.Hansel has an inseparable friendship with Gretal and her foal Cyril. When Hansel came to stay for a few days, the others came too.

Jacko has been in lots of local newspapers lately but we are not surprised he is soo gorgeous!! He is very friendly and likes to be stroked. 

The new donkey foal is doing really well. We haven't got a name for him yet as the visitors are entering a competition to name him at the moment.He is very friendly and likes to be stroked.

The Abacot Ranger ducks are breeding very well which is good, as these are quite a rare breed. At the moment there are 40+ little yellow ducklings on the pond - very amusing to watch as they try to keep up with the adult ducks.

Two goslings have hatched off under a broody hen and she also has ducklings too.How will she teach them to swim?

In the small animal petting barn we have two litters of very pretty baby rabbits and guinea pigs.There are eight baby rabbits - all different colours- very pretty, but I don't know if they are boys or girls yet!

There is always something new to see here.

Amy, our chef , Ashley and Grace have completed the Race for Life last night at Ferry Meadows. They all have personal reasons for trying to raise money for Cancer Research and a collection box in the shop boosted their sponsorship.Well done all of you!

Our very own bundle of joy

At last Daisy has given birth!

Daisy, the little grey and white donkey, has given birth to a lovely colt (boy) foal.Her pregnancy seems to have gone on forever as we have been monitoring her closely for the past eight weeks. After the sadness last year when she had a still-born foal at 10 1/2 months she has now produced a gorgeous little fluffy bundle of mischief after 12 1/2 months.Bob and I have been checking her every 2 hours through the night, but as it turned out she gave birth at 8.00pm last night! At first he didn't seem to know where to go for his milk but after 3 hours and a bit of help from us he found the milk bar and all was well!

We have two litters of baby rabbits! They are still hidden in their fluffy nests so we don't know how many we have yet.I have caught glimpses of some of them and they look very pretty colours. More about them later!

Last Friday, Maggie one of our goats gave birth to a beautiful female kid.If you remember, Maggie had a kid last year and after a naming competition she was named Fudge.Well, we have had so many youngsters to name this year, with the help of our visitors, we are running out of ideas for this latest arrival.

The most recent naming competition was to name the three calves from Rosemary (Dexter), Ebony (Dexter) and Jingle (Belted Galloway). The winners, who won Family Passes were :

Rosemary's calf named Bonnie by Sophie Bradshaw

Ebony's calf named Midnight by Annie Nicholls

Jingle's calf named April by Evelyn Duffy.

Well done all of you- Passes on their way!

We have had a great Bank Holiday weekend. The weather stayed fine with lots of people bringing picnics to enjoy around the farm.The children-and some adults helped to feed the lambs, the new calves and of course collect the eggs.We had face-painting on Sunday and some craft-making on Monday.We had campers staying for the weekend and all in all it was very good.

Yet another calf has arrived at Pigeons Farm

Treacle, one of our Dexter cows has given birth to a tiny heifer (female) calf this week.A few visitors were lucky enough to witness the birth this Wednesday.Mother and baby are doing well.This is the last calf due for the moment, but we are expecting other youngsters soon. Keep watching this space! 

Any of the children who were here during the Easter holidays might have known that a Mallard duck from our pond had decided to nest in the climbing bales.The more curious children had poked their fingers in the gap where she was nesting, only to receive a sharp reprimand from her beak!! Well, guess what? This morning she emerged with thirteen gorgeous ducklings! She waddled down to the poultry pens where she knew there would be food and water for her.We have penned her up for the moment, for her own safety(from foxes etc) and will put her on the pond as soon as possible.She is quite tame as she was hatched here two years ago.When we were cutting grass we accidentally disturbed a nest and hatched the remaining eggs on our incubator and she is one of those chicks.

Well Easter is over and what a great one it was!

On Good Friday we had two hours of crafts in the new education room where the children made Easter gifts, great fun! Later we had an Easter Egg Hunt "Amongst the Flowers". A few eggs got  trodden on but it was enjoyed by all. The egg hunt ran through Friday Saturday and Sunday.

On Monday "The Outstanding Events Company"  kindly loaned us their wonderful Climbing wall. There were queues all day waiting to have a go and it was a challenge enjoyed by all. Anyone interested in hiring this contact rob@outstandingevents.co.uk . We also had an Easter Treasure Hunt around the farm which kept people busy for some time. Lola our goat caused a few problems when she started to eat one of the clues!

Unlike when the photo of the goats was taken we have been very lucky with the weather these holidays and many people have enjoyed picnics around the farm.

We have welcomed some visitors to our new campsite and are gettings bookings for the rest of the summer. Don't leave it too long if you wish to book a stay.

We are still looking for names for the three new calves- there is a naming box in reception.

At the end of April Maggie one of our goats is due to give birth to one or two kids and later on in the year we are looking forward to more births.

Last night Bob and I watched as Isobella gave birth to four gorgeous spotty piglets.It was a bitterly cold night, but we had a heat lamp on and lots of straw to keep them warm. We sat on a bale of straw until about midnight, quietly watching as they popped out!Within minutes of birth they were seeking out the milk bar! One kept going on a walkabout and it nearly got laid on-I nicknamed it "Wandering Willy"

Well, it has been a while since I updated our news. It has been a very busy time . We started lambing on March 4th and to date we have had thirty-six lambs.Unfortunately,we lost two that were presented badly and even with the vets expert help they didn't survive. This is very sad but unfortunately,this is part of keeping and caring for lots of animals.We have fivelambs that are being bottle-fed. This is due to their mothers rejecting them or not having enough milk to look after them. Never mind, we have lots of eager helpers who help us to bottle- feed them at 11.00am and again at 3.00pm. They are soo sweet!

The cows have been busy too. Ebony. our Dexter cow gave birth to a female (heifer) calf then Rosemary another Dexter also gave birth to a heifer calf.

On April 1st. Jingle, the Belted Galloway, had a beautiful Belted heifer calf. So that's three girls! Wereally can't think of three names, so we need some help. We are going to put a naming box in Reception with a competition to name all three. A prize of a family day ticket(two adults and two children) to the winning names.

We had a very successful Car Boot Sale in the far field by the bypass.The weather was glorious and we had lots of people visiting it.We will be doing another  May 17th.

The following weekend, March 21st and 22nd was our lambing weekend.Lots of people visited and some were lucky enough to watch lambs born.It was also Mother's Day and Amy Smith our new chef cooked a three course lunch.She cooked soup ,home produced beef with all the trimmings and then a choice of puds including her yummy Sticky Toffee Pud(it really is the best).

We have just put up a new play centre with slide, swings, lookout post with telescope etc.It has gone down very well so far.

Sidney and Cello are living out at the moment. It has been a long winter and now they have their winter rugs off they are enjoying the spring grass. They will start to come in during the day when the sun gets too hot for them.You can still see them for a pat when you go out to visit the new pond. The ducks enjoy being fed by the children.

We are looking forward to the Easter weekend with lots of fun planned.

At long last our new Climbing Frame has arrived .It's really nice with swings, slide, climbing wall,playhouse and noughts and crosses game. There is a little picnic table for the tots to enjoy their sandwiches!New security measures on the farm should keep it safe.

More baby rabbits and guinea pigs have arrived and we have managed to hatch ornamental pheasants. Even the peacock has laid an egg!

This weekend we look forward to Open Farm Sunday.Farmer Bob will be holding a Question and Answer session as he walks around the farm-a chance to ask him about the animals or anything else.Entrance to the farm is free on this day-so take advantage and come and enjoy the fun!Why not try Amy, our Chef's great menu-home cooked quality food at reasonable prices?