New Arrivals at Fairhill: Baby Goats and Day-Old Chicks

It has been a busy week in the farmyard. Two lots of new arrivals landed at Fairhill on Thursday, and between them they have filled the Kids' Barn with very small animals in a single day.

The timing is not an accident. National Wattle Day falls on Tuesday 1 September, the first day of spring, and the whole farmyard tends to fill up as the weather turns. If you are looking for things to do with kids on the Sunshine Coast over the next few weeks, this is the moment the animals are at their smallest and their most entertaining.

A new mob of baby goats

Our new baby goats arrived late on Thursday afternoon and have settled into the Kids' Barn with the rest of the mob. They join a herd that has become rather well known: our baby goat reel passed 300,000 views earlier this month, and the daily bottle feeding has quietly turned into one of the most popular half hours of the Fairhill day.

You can meet them all at 12.30pm, every day, in the Kids' Barn. That is cuddle time, when the kids have their bottles and our Junior Rangers do the feeding. It is included with every day pass and every membership, and there is no need to book a separate spot.

If you would like the full story on the herd, where they came from and how the feeding works, we wrote about them here: meet the most famous baby goats on the Sunshine Coast.

A fresh brood of day-old chicks

The same morning brought a brood of day-old chicks. Most of them are Quambies, one of Australia's newest heritage-style breeds, developed in Tasmania and raised here at Fairhill and Bamboo Park. With them are some Cream Legbar roosters, who are staying with us as fosters.

Day-old chicks do not stay day-old for long, which is rather the point of coming to see them soon. They will be out with the rangers during the morning sessions, and the egg collecting expedition at 9.30am and 10.30am is the easiest way for smaller visitors to meet the poultry side of the farmyard.

We also raise chickens for sale, and if you keep hens at home the Quamby is worth knowing about: a dual-purpose bird, a steady layer, and a properly good mother when she does go broody. Our Hy-Line hens are the ones to ask about if your priority is maximum egg production. Both breeds, along with our Easter Eggers and Light Sussex, are covered here: Quamby chickens on the Sunshine Coast.

When to come

Fairhill Farmyard Adventures run every half past the hour through the morning, from 8.30am to 12.30pm, seven days a week. Each session is ranger-led and included with your day pass. The schedule is roughly this:

• 8.30amGood morning to the Bantam Pekins and the Silkies, and the Junior Chicken Keeper sticker for those who earn it.
• 9.30am and 10.30amThe Cheeky Chicks Show, the Guinea Pigs Tea Party and the egg collecting expedition.
• 11.30amThe Goat Walkabout, down to Turtle Lake to feed the ducks and back through the gardens.
• 12.30pmThe Kids' Barn. Cuddle time with the baby goats and their bottle feeding, and where you will find all our new arrivals.

The little ones are at their liveliest first thing, so an early start is worth it. Come at 8.30am and you can work your way through every session and finish at the Kids' Barn with the baby goats at half twelve.

This weekend: Wattle Day Weekend

If you are planning a visit, the new arrivals have landed just before one of our favourite weekends of the year. Wattle Day Weekend runs Saturday 29 and Sunday 30 August, 8am to 4pm, celebrating Australia's floral emblem in full golden flower. The nursery benches are full of natives ready for spring planting, the farmyard sessions run as usual through the morning, and the Gardens Café is open for lunch.

There is no better week of the year to put an acacia in the ground, and no better week to introduce a small person to a smaller goat.

Fairhill Adventure Gardens, 114 Fairhill Gardens, Ninderry, on the Sunshine Coast. Happiness is in our Nature.