Six kinds of animal, five of which have merchandise.
Cattle, pigs, sheep, chickens, bees and Goat 061. Four of the five soft toys named after them are permanently out of stock, which tells you a good deal about how we forecast demand.
The animals.
Cattle
Beef Shorthorn, a native breed suited to this ground. Cattle on Cotswold brash are less about the meat margin than…
Pigs
Pigs arrived in Series Three and immediately demonstrated why pig farming is harder than it looks. Richard Ham, the plush…
Sheep
Sheep were the second chapter and the first proper lesson in how much a farmer does not know. New breeds…
Chickens
Chickens, and the eggs that come with them. Chapter 7 was called Fluffing, which is a better joke once you…
Bees
Normal farms sell honey. We sell Bee Juice. The hives were among the first things established here and the honey…
Goats
Goats, one of which was named with all the romance of an ear tag. Goat 061 is now a plush…
The five beasts, and what they are worth.
No Face Sheep. Richard Ham. Goat 061. Pepper Cow. The bee. Five animals given names that read like a combination of an ear tag and a bad joke, and now five nineteen-pound soft toys.
Four of the five are out of stock. Richard Ham has fourteen reviews. That is an extraordinary number for a nineteen-pound plush pig and it means the character merchandise is badly under-supplied relative to demand.
It also means the farm has, entirely by accident, built a working character taxonomy — named animals with established personalities and proven commercial pull. Most brands spend millions trying to create that and end up with a mascot nobody believes in.
- 5
- named beasts
- 4 of 5
- cleaned out
- 14
- reviews on the pig
The livestock, in numbers.
Animal welfare
Every animal here is farmed to British welfare standards, and the show has never hidden the parts of livestock farming that people find difficult. If you want the honest version, the chapters are the place to find it.
Foster one for a season.
A hive, a ewe or a pig. You get the updates, the photographs and what it produces.
What people actually ask.
The two questions this page gets most, answered without a support ticket.
Not on foot, most of the year — it is a working farm with machinery in it. The cameras, the virtual walk and the footpaths are the honest alternatives.
The farming does not. It made a hundred and forty-four pounds in its first year and has rarely done much better. Everything else on this site exists because of that.
