What to Know Before Your Tour

volunteer rewards llama during a training sessions

Working Alongside Staff: A Volunteer’s Experience

August 12, 2019

What Happens During the Farm Tour

Groups are asked to arrive 15 minutes prior to their scheduled tour time and park in our Visitor’s Parking Lot named Otter Lot #2.

Dress for the weather (layer clothing), bring your own drinking bottles and wear closed toe shoes—NO flip-flops.

Your Tour Guide will greet the group(s) at the back of the parking lot.

During the tour, groups rotate through the various farm areas to visit the horses, cows, pigs, or have pony rides and the hayride. If children are over 10 years of age, arrangements may be made to visit the Wildlife Center as a substitution for the pony rides.

The group is reminded to wash their hands before leaving the Farm Center.

All attending groups may use the Ross Field picnic table area during their tour time only but are asked to clean up the tables and surrounding area when finished. If the group is not planning to use the picnic tables, then the group returns to their vehicles in the Otter Lot.

At all times, it is our goal to teach your group about Green Chimneys and the animals that we care for that you will see on your tour.

To Make Our Farm Tours Successful …

We include our farm staff, volunteers, interns and Green Chimneys students who are chosen to guide our groups through the farm animal barn and wildlife tours as well as assist with the children’s pony rides and tractor hayrides.

Everyone involved with a Tour has been trained to handle the groups that arrive at our campus for a fun, safe, educational, and enjoyable tour. We are a Premier Accredited Center of the Professional Association of Therapeutic Horsemanship International (PATH Int’l). We ask that all group chaperones maintain order and assist in the groups’ movement through the different program areas. Unruly behavior will NOT be tolerated as it is likely to upset our animals and poses significant safety issues for both the animals and our guests.

Barred Owl

This barred owl fell from his nest and ended up on the ground in New Paltz, NY where he was rescued and cared for but it was quickly apparent that he was severely disfigured. He had a twisted, crooked beak, his wing feathers weren’t fully developed and one eye was shut while the other did not look as it should. This was not a bird that could be released back into the wild. Green Chimneys wildlife specialists worked with a local veterinary hospital to improve the bird’s health and determined that the owl was totally blind in one eye and 80-90% blind in the other.