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Farm School 1.0 April Session

Thu, Apr 11

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Whispering Oaks Farm

Farm School is a hands-on, animal interactive, 4-week program that meets one day per week, for 2 hours per day, on our family-owned farm.

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Farm School 1.0 April Session
Farm School 1.0 April Session

Time & Location

Apr 11, 2024, 11:00 AM EDT – May 02, 2024, 1:00 PM EDT

Whispering Oaks Farm, 5330 Dana Rd, Fort Myers, FL 33905, USA

About the event

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 1.0 will be held one day per week for 4 weeks & repeat every other month. Farm School is a hands-on, animal interactive, program on our family-owned farm that allows your child the opportunity to learn by doing. Farm school is a Adult Guided, Child- Led Program suitablie for children with all abilities.

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. If we have goats in milk, the children will get to milk a goat and taste it's milk, with parental permission. 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 may also get to see rabbit kits (depending on the season). 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!

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.

Release of Liability Waiver: A signed waiver is reqiuied for participation in any of our classes. 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 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 classes/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.

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 minimum of 5 and a maximum of 15 students per 4 week session. 

Tickets

  • Farm School 1.0 Sibling

    Valid only with purchase of 1 full priced ticket.

    $80.00
    Sold Out
  • Farm School 1.0

    Farm School 1.0

    $100.00
    Sold Out

This event is sold out

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