staying on a farm...will it really stink and be full of flies

[trolleycoin]

I am trying to find somewhere for our UK summer holiday. Have a 3 year old son. We've done self catering holiday cottages before and enjoyed it and I've seen a few I like, this time on farms.

I expect to see, hear and smell the animals (a few horses, sheep) but will it be really smelly in summer and will I spend my week just swatting flies or will it not be too bad?

we have stayed here in the past mainly when ours were younger/pre school. they have enough animals to be interesting and a swimming pool. there is also a great website called cartwheelholidays with farms on it and farmstays. if you pick one with a tourism board grading it should be OK and not full of smell and flies. but fundamentally if you have animals there might be smell.

We never did it in the UK but a couple of times in Germany.

It really depends. Yes to flies, we killed at least 5 per day. But you just have to be careful closing the bedrooms doors and covering food, nothing out of the ordinary tbh. Smell, that depends on the farm and where the animals are kept.

We stayed on a farm breeding pigs and they had some cows. Outside you could smell them, in the flat you couldn't. Our balcony went the other side of the building as well. Outside it was "normal" farm small, only if you ventured inside the pig holding (only with the farmer, not on your own) the smell was gross.

The second farm was grain-producing so the animals they had were purely pets for the children. They lived a bit away from the building so no smell at all. But the children ventured out each morning with the farmer feeding then and then they were inside the pens all the time (some animals were hand-reared and could be played with and stroked all the time).

Read carefully what the farms are offering. Some are not real working farms anymore but keep animals for the guests. Some are a proper farm and not big on holiday entertainment.

But DD loves it and we will go again this year.

Only one we've stayed on is Tredethick Farm Cottages, in Cornwall. A little bit of working farm but really set up for children with soft play, swimming pool, animal feeding etc. I didn't notice a smell and the children adored it - just got to persuade them there are other great places to go on holiday abroad as well..

It's a farm
It will smell whether it's arable or not. An animal farm will smell more.
I am a bit :o you are asking this question tbh. Yes, I live on the edge of several farms, they all smell. We have all managed to cope but if you don't like smells, machinery working into the night in summer or you don't like animals, maybe you best look at something else? :)

The smell is part of the experience and to be honest, you get immune to it. The flys tend to hang around animals and manure, so long as you aren't rolling in it, then will be fine

If it's a fly farm, then yes!

We've stayed on farms and I never remember a smell until you enter the cowshed. It's brilliant. They get to feed the lambs and goats and calves, collect eggs, put geese and hens to bed. It's magical.

I actually "like" farm smells, that from a Londoner mind you I like the smell of creosote and melted road, so I'm possibly weird

YOu've probably booked somewhere by now...BUT if not I would recommend NOT staying on a dairy/beef farm if you don't like the farm smell! Sheep are fine. Have stayed on both and though the farm we stayed on with cows was fine, it was very farm-y!