Lancaster Park & Animal Farm in Chadderton near Oldham is a great value family day out in Greater Manchester.
The farm is quite large with an initial section that has the petting barn, horses and a few animals in the middle and then a large nature walk around several feeds with a stop part way on a playground.
We had a great day, after paying for entry we started exploring and in the petting barn, our little girls absolutely loved petting the tortoises and petting and feeding the rabbits and guinea pigs. The staff were on hand to make sure this was done safely and they kept swapping the animals so that no animal was out for too long which I thought was great!
Our little girl also loved sitting down to hold a rat- not for me but she was made up!
We loved feeding the miniature donkeys, stroking the horses and meeting a huge shire horse with a mustache! We were able to get up close with pigs, sheep, ducks, chickens, Pygmy goats and alpacas aswell.
The playground has a good mix with swings, a zip line, slides and tunnels to clamber through. The perfect place for a picnic!
There’s some optional coin operated extras such as diggers, a pirate shoot out and a car track but there’s lots of activities included that you don’t need to do these unless you want to.
My little girl’s favourite part was the barrel caterpillar ride which was pulled by a quad bike over a bumpy field and she absolutely loved!
The cafe is quite small and mainly serves ice creams, hot and cold drinks and a few snacks. The only food option were hot dogs so I’d definitely recommend to take your own picnic to make a day of it.
It’s open Friday- Sunday only in term time and open every day in school holidays. Keep an eye out on their website for offers too. We visited when the had a toddler Fridays offer of £10 for an adult and child ticket.
The whole site is 100% cash only- there are no cards machine on site so you’ll need cash for entry, the snack bar and for any of the extras such as the caterpillar ride.
