‘The school visits have started at Red House Farm, here in Shropshire, and our Brinsea Maxi 24 EX incubator has been in use. We are looking forward to studying lifecycles using the incubator in the summer term, so have been experimenting with the incubator over a couple of hatches. Now we are confident that the incubation period is very predictable, so we will be able to time when the eggs go into the incubator, so they will be hatching on the day that we have a school visit planned. The design of the incubator means that it will be easy for the children to see the eggs as they hatch. So far the children have enjoyed handling the chicks and the young birds and learning what the need to eat and drink and why their eggs and meat are such an important form of protein in our diet.
On our first visit, one little boy, told me he had not wanted to come on the trip to our farm, as he didn’t enjoy being in the countryside because it was muddy, horrible and just not somewhere he enjoyed being. However later in the day when I appeared in the shed with a box and opened it in front of him to reveal eight little fluffy chicks, his face lit up and I asked if he was pleased he had come now, to which he smiled and replied, ‘Maybe’ and after he had held one of the chicks, he got back on the bus very happy and looking forward to his next visit.
We have absolutely loved our visits from the school children on farm last term, they have done a wide range of activities from apple pressing, neolithic clay pot making, composting, a range of wool crafts including felting, spinning and making a peg loom rug plus lots lots more things.
I know that being able to see our Brinsea incubator in action will become one of their favourite activities on farm. The beautiful part of our set up with this school is that because the children all visit in their year groups once a term they will be able to see how the chicks that they have seen hatch grow and alter in consecutive visits. The children have been so engaged in learning on the farm and we are so looking forward to expanding this knowledge in what we see being a very exciting and rewarding project for us as well as them. We hope that more and more opportunities will become available for schools to visit farms. We believe it is so important that children are able to spend time in nature and appreciate how and where their food is produced.’
Helen Forsyth
