Best farm in essex

[Diamond345]

Any recommendations for a farm to visit to see animals for young children please (1 year old)

I know of barleylands, marsh farm and old mac Donald.

Any recommendations would be great

Hadleigh Rare Breeds farm is nice, they have some unusual heritage breeds & you can feed the animals (they sell bags of food). It's less commercial than the bigger petting farms but I prefer that personally.

Going back a bit but there was one called Tropical Wings which I believe got renamed. Near Maldon ish maybe?

Boydell’s Dairy Farm in Wethersfield, near Braintree. Don’t be put off by the website, it is a lovely day out, particularly for young children. It’s very hands on - you can milk a cow, bottle feed lambs (obviously depending on the time of year) and pet the various animals. There’s tractor rides etc too. They have a Facebook page.

@Teenagersscarethelivinshitoutofme it's now call of the wild, still pretty good but more of a zoo!

Barleylands is really lovely and you could easily spend all day there, I go to a toddler group there every week. They often have special events etc. It is quite pricey though!
Otherwise there is a small petting farm at White Elm Garden Centre which is very reasonable priced and you also get entry to a small soft play that has a baby section and also there’s a nice cafe too.

Thanks all for the suggestions

Bit of a late reply but hopefully still useful to your or anyone else on the hunt for good farms but this site has a list of farms in the UK and it can sort them by how far away they are from you: https://treehub.co.uk/