Barn Farm has been set up as a working agricultural unit running a variety of livestock and producing traditionally grown foods. The farm is a viable economic unit in its own right, but has in addition the facility to help people unfortunate enough to be long term sick or with some forms of disability by giving them the opportunity of regaining confidence by working on the land or with the animals. Barn Farm does not have ‘Organic’ certification, but all produce is supplied as ‘wholefood’ - which means that the farm is run on broadly organic lines using traditional farming methods. Consisting currently of just under six acres, the farm is split up into five small paddocks of just under an acre each so that the livestock can be moved around in rotation to ensure that there is no build up of residual pests or diseases. There is also a special paddock where specimen poultry and a variety of pets are kept in as free an environment as possible in order that they may interact with visitors. Barn Farm now has a further 14 acres of Land in the area which is added to the rotation of livestock.
The land is currently almost entirely down to permanent pasture for grazing the livestock. Much work has been done in recent months to improve the drainage by ditching along the hedgerows, which has helped to remove the surface water more quickly after rain. This has helped in two ways, by removing the surface water the grass is less likely to be damaged by the animals feet, and because there is less mud animals with hooves are less liable to have footrot problems - this is particularly significant in the case of sheep and goats who tend to suffer quite badly if their feet remain wet and muddy for any length of time.