Hallelujah! Our first lambs have arrived! We have been doing nightly and early morning checks for almost a week, of course they arrived early on the day we arrived late! Nancy was the first to have her twins, we were expecting to have some issues with the three younger girls as they were originally orphans and bottle fed so we were unsure if they would have the mothering instinct as this is their first year in lamb, however she was up and eating and all seemed well. Nancy and her twins Nora also had a lamb at foot, and by the time we got down to her it looked like another was heading out with ..read more

We had a rather unwelcome visitor over the last couple of days. We weren’t entirely sure what it was, but some creature in the night was taking our chickens, including our beloved Mary Berry and leaving them headless. Our first clue was a five fingered footprint and some bite marks on a survivor of the attack. We’ve seen a mink roaming around close to the chicken coop a couple of times, we always thought it was just stealing the eggs. These have 5 toes and do attack chickens, apparently they like to drink the blood like vampires. We didn’t know how it was getting in the coup so we set our tra ..read more

We welcome our newest member of the flock. Harry the Herdwick. He’s 7 months old so may still be quite young as a ram, but we’re hoping he’ll do his job with our ewes. As he gets older his chocolate coloured fleece will fade to the usual grey that herdwicks are known for ..read more

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What a wonderful afteroon! It was great to hear Collingham band play and see the Glebe field come alive during the coronation weekend. Free cake! Bell ringing! Flower arranging and face painting! What’s not to love! Naturally our chicks and lambs had to come along and join in the picnic festivities ..read more

Welcome back! We hope everyone has had an amazing summer! I think we can all tell the seasons are starting to change, the darker mornings, the cool breeze and the damp drizzle. Summer might be over but I think nature tries to ease us gently into the autumn months with the bounty of fruits. What better way to start the term than an apple and blackberry crumble with heaps of custard ..read more

Tomorrow marks the start of June and I’ve just realised we havent had a single blog post yet this year! So here we are. We have the broody chickens patiently sitting on their eggs, we’ve already had a couple of chicks hatch but there are a good number of eggs left in their nests. Our students also got their first hands on experience shearing sheep and bottle feeding lambs ..read more

What an amazing year we’ve had here at The Ark. Last January we set ourselves the challenge of blogging our way through the year. Well we (mostly) made it and now we get to look back on all the fantastic things we got up to! It doesn’t end here though! We have plenty of exciting new projects and hopefully a couple of new animals on the horizon. We cant wait to see what 2022 brings and we look forward to seeing you all in the new year ..read more

Wishing everyone a very merry Christmas. We hope you all enjoy a fantastic festive feast and we will see you in the new year! Barry getting into the festive spirit ..read more

I hope everyone has enjoyed their summer break! I think by the lack of posts you can tell we have been taking some time off too! It’s only fitting then that we start with some very special news! We were overwhelmed by one of our children, Mason, who first attended The Ark with Fieldhead Carr Primary school and then went on to join our holiday clubs over the summer. Mason had been secretly fund raising for The Ark by setting himself some difficult personal challenges and by overcoming these he has managed to raise an incredible £200!! This means so much to us as we are self funding, so for one ..read more