Farmer Palmer's 3Bottle feeding a lamb has got to be a rite of passage when growing up and determined that BB shouldn’t miss out this year I set about finding somewhere we could do it.

We discovered Farmer Palmer’s farm park near Poole, Dorset, on a recent trip to Granny and Grandpa’s and while we’ve visited our fair share of family-friendly farms I can honestly say this is by far the best.

Among a host of activities on offer (and depending on the time of year) there’s the chance to hold a guinea pig, bottle feed lambs, watch cows being milked, ride miniature tractors and trucks and climb and slide to your heart’s content in a barn filled with hay bales.

Given our trip was on a drizzly Monday there was the perfect mix of indoor and outdoor activities for shower-dodging, including a two-tier soft play area and covered bouncy castle. And when the clouds part there are real tractor rides around the working farm, a collection of delightful wooden wendy houses and go-karts with seats on the back for the kids.

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At £8.50 per adult and £4.25 for a child under three it’s not the cheapest farm we’ve visited, but it’s by far the best value and worth every penny – we were there for more than four hours, which is previously unheard of for such an outing. Bringing a picnic along would of course make it even better value, but as we’re not that organised we opted for the restaurant which offers cold kids lunch boxes and homemade canteen-style meals that won’t break the bank.

If you’re in that neck of the woods I thoroughly recommend a trip to Farmer Palmer’s – you won’t be disappointed. And if things start to go a little bit pear shaped there’s even a built-in naughty step to hand – just the spot for Misery Guts to rest his weary head.

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