The weather was really lovely last weekend so we thought we’d go to first day of the new season at Totnes rare breeds farm.
The plan was to go out early, but even the best of plans seem to go out of the window when you have a toddler. We left the house about half 11 and of course my little girl fell asleep when we were about 10 minutes away from the farm!
Instead of waking her up I decided it was probably best to go into Totnes town for a bit first to have a mooch and hope that she’d stay asleep in the pushchair for a bit.
About an hour later she woke up and we had a look around a couple more charity shops then headed to the farm.
Luckily Totnes Rare Breeds Farm is well signposted and if you catch the (main line) train, the station is right next to the car park you park in for the farm, Catch the steam train and the station is opposite the farm. Parking is pay and display but it’s fairly cheap at £1 an hour. We paid for 2 hours which was fine for us.
The car park is a short 5-10 minute walk from the farm but again it is well sign-posted, flat and actually quite relaxing and picturesque.
The entrance to the farm is across the train tracks from The South Devon Railway’s station and the farm shares the stations toilets and changing facilities. South Devon railway also do a ‘Three great attractions, one amazing day’ ticket where you get to ride on the steam train and visit the Totnes rare breeds farm as well as Dartmoor Otters & Buckfast butterflies. I wish I had known about this before as we’ve been wanting to visit the otter & butterfly farm and my little girl also loves trains, (even if she does now associate them with going to visit Santa lol).
Before actually entering the main farm there is the farm cafe which you can eat at without having to pay to go into the farm. It has inside and outdoor seating as well as a lovely picnic area. There is also ‘pushchair parking’ available. We didn’t eat at the cafe as we’d already had lunch but wouldn’t mind doing so in future at it looked reasonably priced and had lots of yummy and also healthy choices.
The farm opened on the 8th of April and is open everyday 10am till 4.30pm until the 29th of October. Prices are as follows:
- Under 2’s – Free
- Children 3+ – £5.00
- Adults – £6.50
- Senior citizens – £6.00
- Family 2 Adults + 2 Children – £20.00
- Food for animals – 50p a bag
Sometimes they have seasonal events on too. Check out their website for more details.
On entering the farm we were greeted by their selection of owls, including this little cutie who really did like a stroke.
Following the path led us into the small animals corner where my little girl got to stroke a corn snake and hold a duckling and a guinea pig, both of which she loved, even if she did try to squeeze the duckling lol. There is also hedgehogs in this part but they were all asleep when we were there.
Next we went into the lambs pen who were all out sunbathing. My little girl loved being able to be up close and stroke them (even if i did have to tell her “No you can’t ride them” when she kept asking).
After we had prized ourselves away from the cute lambs (which we couldn’t help revisiting multiple times during our visit), we walked around looking at everything else the farm had to offer, feeding any animals that would come to us.
Almost all the animals can be stroked, fed and their pens entered. There is a range of different types of birds at the top end of the farm and lots of sheep, goats, ducks, chickens, red squirrels and chipmunks. My little girl also enjoyed having a play on the tractor.
There is also donkeys and alpacas which we loved. You can’t enter these pens but you can feed and stroke them, the alpacas love to be stroked. They are so soft and make really funny noises which my little girl thought was hilarious. She also thought it was funny that one kept looking at her (probably wanted more food).
The favourite of the day was definitely the pigmy goats as the were just too cute and funny. They kept racing around and trying to play with the ducks that were also in the pen with them.
The farm is very big on hygiene and all pens have hand sanitizer for you to use at the gate. Also by the entrance/exit to the farm there are sinks of all sizes with plenty of soap and hot water.
Overall we really enjoyed our first visit to Totnes rare breeds farm. There isn’t many places you can go where you can get so close to the animals to be able to feed and cuddle them.
My little girl can’t stop talking about the farm and all the animals and has been asking to go back everyday since. This makes the farm a big winner in our books and we will more than likely be going back multiple times during the rest of this year.
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If anyone else has been here or has somewhere else that they think we would enjoy, please leave me a comment or email me at adevonmum@gmail.com. We are always looking for new places to visit.
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25 comments
A great review! I love Devon and am in Wiltshire so in the spirit of the West Country I have followed you! Have you discovered Linkys yet? If not, check out my site and at the end of many of my posts are little badges that take you to other sites. Here you can Linky a post of yours and read/get to know other bloggers. Have fun! X
Thank you I have followed you back. I have found a few linkys that I want to join in with I’m just struggling with time management at the minute. My little girl starts nursery next week for a few hours 3 mornings a week so hopefully I can start getting more organised x
Yes. I’m back to work tomorrow. I try and blog in the evenings but it’s tricky. Good luck. X
I can’t wait for my twins to be old enough to enjoy animals! And their grandparents live in Devon, so maybe we can combine visits!
There’s so many great places to go in devon. We’re hoping to visit lots more this year 😊 x
Must visit this one. #adventurecalling xx
You really should, it’s lovely.
I need to explore Dartmoor more as I haven’t been up there in years 🙈 xx
Your very welcome to pop in 😉 xx
👍 will definitely have to arrange something xx
What a great day out this sounds like. With such a good variety of animals the little ones (and big ones) could be occupied for hours. I’d love to see the Dartmoor otters! Thanks for joining us on #adventurecalling I hope you can again.
It is really lovely there. I need to visit the otters too as I’ve never been. I will definitely be linking up again, thanks for hosting X
Sounds like a great day out. My toddler has got over his fear of animals and loves them now, I know he’s enjoy this. Also, the 3 in 1 ticket sounds amazing, such a great deal on some fab attractions. Trains are a big hit in this house as well so I’ll have to check it out when we’re back in Devon. Thanks so much for linking up to #adventurecalling
I’m thinking about doing the 3 in 1 day out next time we go as we haven’t been to the butterfly & otters or on the steam train yet 🙈 x
Oh my goodness, what a wonderful day out! This sounds like such a lovely experience for little ones…but….to be honest…I think my very grownup husband and I would get a kick out of it, too! Who can resist those little goats, and a friendly owl!! 🙂
It’s definitely great fun for all the family! I loved having a cuddle with the lambs x
Looks like a lovely day out. Typical that she fell asleep 10 minutes away.
She does it ALL the time! X
Oh I adore seeing other people’s days out with the kids – this looks brilliant! That tractor ride must have been so much fun 🙂 Thanks for linking up to #dreamteam xx
It was a really fun day out. Days out involving animals are our favourites 🙂 x
Awww … so lovely. I love the UK farms with the little animal petting areas. So lovely for the kids.
#twinklytuesday and #dreamteam
It looks like such a lovely day out for little ones, and I am a sucker for a cute animal, thanks so much for linking up #mondayescapes x
Great article!
I encourage my kids to enjoy the good weather. We either visit our local community center to go swimming (using both indoor and outdoor pools, plus water slides!). Find an ice skating or roller skating rink. Play mini golf. Challenge each other in laser tag. Take a family bike ride. Play Frisbee golf. Go canoeing or kayaking. Play basketball, baseball, volleyball, football, or soccer in our backyard or basement. Rent a kid’s exercise video from our local library. Wash the car together. Plant a garden together, etc.
Wow there’s so many good activities there and you’ve just reminded me that I need to take my little girl to play crazy golf now that she’s a bit older ☺
Looks like a lovely day out:) Thanks for linking up with #TwinklyTuesday
Looks like a really nice day out, thanks for linking up to #MondayEscapes last week, lovely to have you.