One of my favourite things to do this time of year is help out on a local farm. It’s fun, it’s educational, and is definitely something that everyone should get involved in at least once. As such, here’s 10 reasons why you should help out on your local farm this year.

1. You get to ride fun farm vehicles. The first ever farm vehicle I rode was this big quad bike, where I drove myself and the farmer’s wife around their fields. It was super sunny, the sky was bright blue, we were surrounded by fluffy white clouds and sheep, and as the machine threw us this way and that, the woman damn nearly killed herself laughing as I nearly yeeted us into trees and over fat rocks. It’s a lot of fun.

2. Hang out with a load of cool animals. My personal favourite thing to do on a farm is hang out with kids and calves – they’re so friendly and lovely. I absolutely fell in love with the first ever calf that I hung out with – she was super beautiful and had the most divine eyelashes. Man, I miss her.

3. Farms are super pretty! At least in the UK, they all feature big farmhouses with green hills towering over golden valleys, with the constant moo-ing and baa-ing, the rogue chickens that follow you everywhere, and the dogs covered in scars from guarding the livestock. I love it all. 

4. You will learn a helluva lot about animals. I remember the first time I saw an orphan lamb covered in the skin of a dead lamb so that it’s adoptive mother would accept it and it wouldn’t die: it was super interesting (and creepy)! And then there was the time I was warned about how much to feed a pregnant ewe to make sure the lamb doesn’t grow too big and break the mother’s ribs as it comes out. Who knew?

5. You get to be a cowboy. Or, at least, a sheepboy. I remember carrying two lambs beneath each arm whilst chickens waddled around me and the guard dogs growled at an incoming tractor, and I felt exactly like one of those movie cowboys. Especially when I looked across the field and saw a bunch of *actual* cowboys riding bareback.

6. You learn to get over things. Mucking out sickly pink and yellow innards after a birth, or driving several of your favourite sheep down to the neighbouring farm to be sold for slaughter definitely makes your skin a little tougher. For a moment, you’re fully engulfed in the cycle of life and death, and that means that you learn to put up with things and get over them. 

7. You get to stretch your legs. I have never felt more fit than when working on a farm – I’ve worked with ladies aged 73 that are still running circles around their herds, just because they’re out using their muscles all day long. You’ll leave feeling a whole lot healthier.

8. An abundance of fresh air. Hanging out in the great outdoors is one of my biggest passions, and doing so whilst in a Polaris Ranger and speeding through the fields with open doors and bright blue skies with herds of sheep chasing you is a great feeling.

9. Everything has its place, and you become a part of that. I love how everything operates on a farm and how everything fits together. Working on a farm means that you – however briefly – commit yourself to working life, and once you’re engaged in the routine of things, you become a part of what makes it all tick. If you’re ever feeling lost, becoming a farmhand is one way to overcome that.

10. Stargazing. The sky at night on a farm is one of the most mesmerising things I have ever seen. There’s all of these old big barns and tractors glinting in the moonlight, with a billion silver stars tinkling overhead. I’d never actually recognised those formations that people always talk about until my first night on a farm, and it was so beautiful, it felt as though I’d never even seen a night sky before.

And so, that sums up the top 10 reasons why you should help out at your local farm this season. Of course, I haven’t even mentioned other fantastic benefits such as the food (there’s nothing heartier and healthier than farm food), but I’ll let you experience all that yourself.

For me, the worst bit is building bonds with animals knowing that they’re likely going to end up slaughtered, and that absolutely sucks. But it’s going to happen whether or not you nurse a sickly lamb back to health or hang out with the isolated bull – their lives are just going to be a little bit better for you turning up.

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