Work experience and zoopharmacognosy

Spitalfields City Farm offers work experience placements for students looking to gain practical animal care and horticultural experience amongst other activities important to community farmwork.

We offer short term farm work experience (students attend Monday – Friday for one or two weeks) and long term farm work experience (usually animal care/animal management college students who attend one or two days a week over several months). Both roles will be given a full farm induction, including health and safety procedures and are covered by the farm’s insurance.

Please note, we are a small 1.75 acre farm in London and are not able to offer accommodation, travel or food expenses. The farm's ability to offer work experience placements is made possible by funding from Reaching Communities - The Big Lottery Fund.
 
Plant ID & Applied Zoopharmacognosy
These plant identification sessions and subsequent applied zoopharmacognosy* observational experiments, whereby the identified plants are offered to animals and their selections are observed and noted, have become quite popular with students as they provide a unique interaction with our resident farm animals.  
 
These sessions provide the direct contact/experience with our farm animals, which so many young people seek but also introduce future veterinarians, zoologists, farmers, and anyone who enjoys animals, to the importance of objectively studying animal behaviour.
 
These sessions are also quite useful in informing our animal care practices as plant preferences can indicate possible health issues or ideally facilitate self-medication by the animal.
 

Zoopharmacognosy noun
The foraging behaviour of animals that enables them to self medicate by choosing to ingest or inhale certain plants or non-food remedies and oils that may have a prophylactic or therapeutic effect.