Toy farms - advice please!!

[MamaMia100]

Hello. I want to buy 16mo DS a farm for Xmas but not sure which to go for. Considering oldfield, le toy van or elc brambledown. Any experience of any of these? Any advice greatly appreciated! Thanks

I've got dd 18 months the Bigjigs one for Xmas, it looks nice and chunky and was under £20 on amazon.

Absolutely NOT the elc one. It's shit.

we had a le toy van one. We got it a few years ago so design might have changed but DS loved it.

We found it very sturdy, but on the downside it wasn't really practical to take it apart every time DS had finished playing with it, so if you don't have much room that might be a consideration.

I second macaroni on the ELC one. It was a complete waste of money.

And I third the other posters, not the ELC one, so poorly made we threw ours away. Rubbish!

I've got the Fisherprice one for my 15 month old . It's the one his nursery has so I already know he likes it.

Thanks everyone! Really helpful. I definitely want one that will be used for years to come (and played with now by my 3yo DD as well) so it will be either the toy van or tidlo / John crane oldfield farm one. The former looks more sturdy but the latter moves about, which I think might be good but then could just be really annoying if for eg the fences keep falling over... Anyone got experience of the oldfield one?
Thanks again

We bought the old field one (from amazon) for 17 month dd for Christmas. It's AMAZING! We made it up and I had loads of fun 'testing' it before wrapping it up! Very well made and will be used for years to come! It doesn't come with animals so we bought a few 'Britains' sets but I'm sure she will enjoy using her duplo animals with it too.

Thank you wobble. Sounds good! So you don't think the fences will be knocked over all the time? I read some reviews that the roofs fall off too easily but we'd probably just leave them off when playing with it anyway. Really can't decide between the two now! Any more experiences greatly appreciated! Thanks all xx

This one is fantastic and if you order through the Mumsnet page here you get 15% off.

The fences will knock over yes because they're not joined together but picking them up and moving them round and having different shaped fields is half the fun I think. The roof on the bigger barn does come off and falls off easily but to be honest ill take it off anyway while we play so we can see what's inside.