October Farm School: Ages 11-13

Does your child love animals? Have they ever wanted to milk a goat, give belly rubs to a pig, socialize baby rabbits, or incubate & hatch a chick?

Farm School will be held one day per week for 4 weeks & repeat each month, from October 2022 through April 2023. Farm School is a hands-on, animal interactive, program on our family-owned farm that allows your child the opportunity to learn by doing. Each four-week session will follow the schedule found here.

Week One:

This week we will focus on learning about goats & collecting eggs to put in our incubators. The children will spend most of their time inside our female goat enclosure, interacting with our goats while learning about them. We will also go on an “egg hunt” to find eggs to put in our incubators, because not all of our hens lay inside their nesting boxes. Children will take home a worksheet to review what they learned in class.

Topics include (but not limited to): Goat Anatomy, gestation, kid care, milking (how to, teat care, properties of milk), ruminating animals, hoof care, feed & mineral requirements, housing & shelter needs, characteristics of Nigerian Dwarf Goats & how to filter milk. The incubation of chicken eggs & how we will track their progress over the next 3 weeks.

Week Two:

This week we will focus on learning about our rabbits & candling our eggs in the incubators. The children will be handling our rabbits which will be set up in pens. Arm sleeves will be provided for the children to use. They will also get to meet our litter of baby rabbits. Children will take home a worksheet to review what they learned in class.

Topics Include (but not limited to): Rabbit Anatomy, gestation, kit care, grooming for both American & Angora Rabbits, housing requirements, feed requirements, how angora & American rabbits are different. Angora wool, how its harvested from the rabbit and what it is used for. We will also check on the progress of the eggs in our incubators by candling them.

Week Three:

This week we will focus on learning about our pigs, checking on our baby rabbits to see how much they have grown & candling our eggs in the incubators. We will also set up our brooder boxes in preparation for their hatching next week. The children will be interacting with our pigs and piglets directly while we learn about them. We will see how much our baby rabbits have grown; they should have opened their eyes by now.

Topics Include (but not limited to): Pig anatomy, gestation, piglet care, characteristics of the breed, housing / shade / wallow requirements, feed requirements. We will also check on the progress of the eggs in our incubators by candling them.

Week Four:

This final week we will focus on learning about our birds (chicken, ducks, turkeys), hatching our chicks, making our own goat cheese & reviewing all we have learned so far. Children will take home a worksheet to review what they learned in class & will be presented with their Farm School completion certificates.

Topics Include (but not limited to): Chicken, duck & turkey anatomy, how chicks are hatched, brooded and housed depending on the type of bird, how their eggs look and taste different, molting, sunlight needs, housing requirements, feed requirements. Our chicks should be hatching, we will move them to our brooder! We will also make goat cheese from the goat milk; children will be able to take this home.

Each child will receive a certificate of completion & their very own photo book at the end of the program.

Additional Information

What to wear

-  Play clothes

-  Closed Toed shoes

-  Sunscreen / Bug Repellant

-  Hat / Sunglasses

What not to wear

-  Anything you don’t want to get dirty

-  Open toed shoes

-  Clothing with tassels / frays/ hanging string etc.

Bottled Water & insect repellant will be provided, there will be a public restroom and a place to wash your hands.

Farm School Shirts will be available for Purchase for $20, please ket us know if you would like to order one for your child and we will send you sizing and color information. If ordered during registration, your child will receive their shirt on the first day of Farm School

Release of Liability Waiver: All visitors are subject to the Florida Agritourism operator laws. FLA. Stat. 570.88 - 570.89. Under Florida law, an agritourism operator is not liable for injury or death of, or damage or loss to, a participant in an agritourism activity conducted at this agritourism location if such injury, death, damage, or loss results from the inherent risks of the agritourism activity. Inherent risks of agritourism activities include, among others, risks of injury inherent to land, equipment, and animals, as well as the potential for you to act in a negligent manner that may contribute to your injury, death, damage, or loss. You are assuming the risk of participating in this agritourism activity.

Parents must sign a photo release for their child in order to receive a photobook.

Inclement Weather: This is an outdoor class, and we do not have public indoor cover available. Florida weather can change rather quickly, so in the event weather prohibits our ability to complete our schedule activities, all reasonable attempts will be made to reschedule. Please plan accordingly.

Parents have the option to drop off or stay with their child. Parents who drop off must provide emergency contact information. We ask that parents be PROMPT in picking their child(ren) up from class as some of our clssses/events run back to back.

Many of our animals free-range. This includes chickens, roosters, turkeys, ducks, farm cats & 2 livestock guardian dogs, all of which are used to visitors. We do have active Honey Bee Hives on our farm.

Parents are responsible for the full tuition, regardless if your child is able to attend every date in their Farm School session. Refunds will ONLY be issued if an emergency prevents participation in all 4 scheduled class days within a session.

Class sizes are set to a maximum of 10 students per 4 week session. A brief supply list will be sent to you prior to your chulds session beginning.