Popell Barns Care Farm

Welcome to Popell Barns Care Farm! We are based in Hampshire on a 40 acre farm and offer care farming courses for children aged 9 to 17 to attend as trainee farmers, on Fridays, for 12 weeks starting in either April or September each year.  

We feel there is a real need to help young people who may benefit from life on the farm and being outdoors, working with nature and animals.  We decided to set the care farm up to help. 

All our courses are led by Farmer Holly. As well as working on the farm, Holly also runs the mobile farm as well as the care farm and is enthusiastic and experienced in working with both animals and children! Farmer Holly will work with you at your own pace to learn and enjoy the outdoors. We are insured, licensed, Leaf Education Farmer Members, Double CEVAS Accredited (Countryside Educational Visits Accreditation Scheme, Educational and Therapeutic Routes) as well as holding our Quality Badge awarded by Council for Learning Outside the Classroom. 

What daily activities do we have on the care farm? 

- Care of the animals (includes grooming pony/donkey and feeding/cleaning out)

- Planting and growing crops and flowers

- Poultry care – we have chickens, ducks, turkeys and emus on farm! 

- Nature and the outdoors– pond dipping/insets and other fun activities too! 

- Basic woodwork – build your own bug house.

- Learning about cows, milking, making icecream and butter 

- Helping out with and learning about our shop on site. 

Benefits 

- Improve confidence, mental and physical health 

- Work as part of a team as well as individually 

- Enjoying the outdoors

- Making new friends 

- Learning new skills  

Please contact us if you would be interested in attending our care farm with your child or  you are a school and would like more information on attending with a group of children and we can provide details and costs involved.  We will be very happy to answer any questions you may have.

Testimonials: 

We have been attending Popell Farm for the last 7 weeks with Secondary School students every Friday.  There is such a wide variety of activities that the students can join in with.  Holly sent us an itinerary each week, so the children have an idea of the structure for their day.  

They have met many of the different animals kept at the farm and helped with their daily care routines as well as bathing and training.  The chicks and baby rabbits were a real favourite each week and to se the joy students were experiencing made it such a success.  

Milking the cows was also of great interest to the children,  then following on processing the milk, making butter and then the best treat of all making ice cream.  The following week they taste tested the different flavours they had made, and the mint choc chip went down a treat! 

We will be signing up again in September as Holly has worked so hard to make the farm interesting, educational but fun at the same time.  This has been a fantastic opportunity for the children, and I would recommend a visit to anyone interested in the farming life and has a love for animals.   Thank you so much! 

Secondary School - Southampton