Life on the farm after lockdown: Farmer Parrs welcomes back visitors

The Rossall Lane farm and on-site museum reopened on Saturday July 4, although all indoor barns remain closed.

The animals have been moved to outdoor paddocks for the safety of visitors, and owner James Parr explained that he had his younger visitors in mind when updating the farm.

"We've made sure everyone is safe when they visit, and we were especially careful as a lot of our visitors are children," James said.

"We aren't allowing access to the barns, and at the moment our cafe and restaurant is closed until next week. We have the track and trace system in place, hand sanitisers and hand washing facilities all over the farm.

"We're also giving everyone some animal feed when they visit, because we haven't got tractor and pony rides or animal handling available at the moment."

Mr Parr said he wanted to make sure activities and food facilities were reintroduced gradually, and only when he felt confident they could be implemented safely.

The farm was not completely out of action during the lockdown, though, as baby pygmy goat Billy-Bob was born - but was rejected by his mother.

After nearly a month of bottle-feeding by James' wife Debbie, the young kid was able to rejoin the other goats at the farm last week.

"During the lockdown we only had one member of staff on site at a time to look after the animals, so we took Billy-Bob home," James continued.

"He's doing really well now, he's settled in nicely. We're looking forward to getting back to normal, but only when it's safe to do so."