Family Day Out Review: Lambing & Mini Zoo at Reaseheath College*

It’s beginning to look a lot like Spring, especially when we were invited to go to Reaseheath College for their Lambing and Zoo Weekends.

The college is situated in the market town of Nantwich, Cheshire and is set on acres of land that is utilised to teach a wide range of students within topics like Agriculture, farming, land management, food production and more.

Lambing is of course a yearly event and gives the visitors the chance to enter this magnificent College and see how they tend to the sheep who are about to lamb.

The event also allows you access to the onsite mini Zoo, which is also part of their teaching facilities. It houses a wide range of animals both wild and domestic, and you get to see just how students learn about all aspects of animal management in these amazing facilities.

If you would like to explore more around Reaseheath and enjoy this amazing access to view some lambs being born on their site, then read our review on Lambing at Reaseheath College.

What we thought of the Lambing & Mini Zoo Weekend at Reaseheath College

The day got off to a good start with absolutely glorious weather, we arrived at the College at around 10.30am even though the event opens at 10am. I believe there was a queue at that time to get in, however, arriving 30 minutes later meant that there was no queue at the entrance at all. The event is on until 4pm, so there is plenty of time to get everything done.

When you walk through you are greeted by some friendly members of staff at the entrance where you can hand in your ticket (you need to pre-book online for this event) and you will be given enough wrist bands for your party, which you need to wear throughout your time at the event. Once inside you reach the food stalls and then taking a right you can head to the lambing area – everything is clearly sign posted.

We then had a quick stop at the cows first where you can see how the cows queue in an oddly fashion to use the self serve milking machine. The children were fascinated by this, and were asking lots of questions which the students/staff were only too happy to answer. Also in this part of the farm/college there are a few trackers that you are allowed to get on and sit in, which is fun as they are huge. My three have seen plenty of trackers and the queue was a little long for mine to take up this actively but there were plenty of children having a great time.

Just round the corner, we reached the lambing area. This area has several barns inside if were lambs are kept within each one. They are places in areas depending upon how many lambs they due to have. When we approached the shepherd and a college lecturer were already there, explaining that two lambs within this particular barn were actually due to give birth. The children were so excited, we waited and waited and it paid off, we managed to see the first birth of the day! Although don’t be surprised if you miss it a bit due to the other sheep often surrounding each other especially when one about to lamb!

In the next area the children were able to see sheep with their young lambs, and they were close enough to touch them. We were lucky enough again to see another birth this time of triplets. We didn’t see all three being born, we saw one, that had to have human intervention, and then the second the head was sticking out, whist mum was chasing after the one that had just been born! My three found this fascinating to watch.

It was great seeing the students in action, and having the lecturers on hand to answer questions, The lambing areas was well organised and the animals welfare was always the priority, which was important to see. Once we’d spent more just under two hours with the lambs, we headed over to wash our hands, and off to the food stalls. There are plenty of areas on site to be able to give your hands a good wash, which I would advise you do especially being on the farm and not used to some of the germs you may find there.

Food onsite is quite simple, and there is only one hot food stand, plus a stall selling cold pre-made pies, a sweet stall, a tea and cake tent, a churros stand, a coffee trailer, and finally an ice cream stall. We had a made the most of the hot drinks area and the hot food stand. The chips were reasonably priced at £1.50 which comfortably fed one person/child. We then had some churros which were just delicious, along with an ice cream, which again was one of the best ice creams I’ve had in a long while, and we have some great selections in the area (of Cheshire) so they did well to compete.