Been wanting to visit a farm on this trip, knowing that Mr Love would like such a visit. Am trying to find 1 that is not too commercialized and decided to go read local's travel blog. Whaha thank god for my good command in chinese..
Finally decided on Yilan Ranch （宜农牧羊场） located in 罗东. It seems to be a smaller scale farm, the activities inside are interesting (feeding piglets,lambs, goats, rabbits, hamsters etc.) And most importantly, it fits my itinerary for Lou Dong. I can visit 传艺 in the morning which is on the other side of Luodong, den come back to the side that I am staying to visit the ranch and finally end the day at Luodong Night Market which is a stone throw away from my hotel. Perfect!
The thing about Lou Dong is that the transportation is not as well developed as Taipei. The buses frequency are not high, places are so far apart from each other. Cab are not readily available although you can ask for assistance at tourist attractions to get them to call 1 for you.
I decided not to take a cab there though its an easy way out. Instead, from my research (yes again), I found out that it is 2.2km away from Lou Dong Sports Park(罗东运动公园）. And there is bike rental available here, so I decided to take the Taiwan tourist bus from 传艺 and drop here to rent a bike to cycle to the ranch.
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| 罗东运动公园 |
Rental here is NTD100 for 2 hours per bike and you will need to leave 1 of your identification with the owner. The bikes are actually for getting around the sports park, and we cycled it out. hehe..
The good thing is, there is a cyclist path along the way to the ranch and there are virtually no other cyclist while we are cycling. But then, the road there are not as easy as I tot. Up slopes are a killer, especially at 28deg. I nearly died when I conquered the 1st upslope and have to rest for a while before we continue with the journey. It took us nearly 20min to reach.
The funny thing is, we are the only 2 on bicycle. The others who visited either at least have a motorcycle or are all driving cars. And all are local.Whahaha...
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| Finally reached! |
The entrance fee is NTD20/pax and you deposit it into the can at the entrance. There is no 1 tending the can, so it bases entirely on your honesty.
Its not a very big farm from what we can see, and the animals here are domestic kinds.
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| Letter boxes, you can post a postcard from here. |
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| Love the calla lilies.. |
We went straight to the piglets area to check out the piglets..Man they were cute!! Mr Love could not contained his excitement when he sees his own kind! Haha.
The piglets are also very excited as they tot they are gonna get food. I guess the visitors will all feed them, thus when they sense people coming, they got excited. Hahah. But sorry, we haven brought the food yet.
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| See His hand? Trying to touch the piglet |
Notice nearly all photos are of Mr Love and the animals only. Reason being, I am VERY afraid of the animals. Not even dare to move close to them for a photo. Whaha. There is 1 dog roaming around the farm and I was trying my best to keep myself out of the way. In fact some of the animals here are roaming freely around and I too, tried my best to keep out of their way. So, I am only able to help Mr Love to take photos while keeping an eye on any animals coming near. Hehe
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| Check out the excited pigs (inclusive of my hubs) |
All of a sudden, the piglets started to fight, scaring the daylights out of the lamb staying in the same pen with them and also me. I was amazed at how fierce they were, I always thought piglets are tame animals. But no lo, they really can fight well, even after the caretakers when in to separate the fight, they would give up. 1 of the piglets were already bleeding at its leg. In the end, they moved the injuried party to another pen and all the commotion stops.
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| Fighting piglets. |
We decided to go buy some milk to feed the piglets and lambs. Each bottle are priced at NTD 30 and you need to return the bottle after use.
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| Mr Love,after buying the milk |
There is a signage there stating that the piglets can drink 1/3 of the bottle and the rest to feed the lambs. But when Mr Love started to feed the piglets, they refuse to let go of the bottle lo!! Whaha And they are using all their might to suck the milk as fast as they can. Within minutes, half a bottle is gone!!
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| The 2 piglets njoying their milk |
Told Mr Love to pull out so that he can feed the other 3 piglets at the other pen. It took him quite a while to make the piglets let go out the bottle.
The other 3 piglets are as greedy as the 1st 2, leaving nearly no more milk for the lambs. We were amused by them lo. Mr Love found it really funny that the piglets are so greedy for food.
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| The other pen |
With only a bit of milk left, we went to search for the lamb to feed it. Poor lamb, only have managed to drink that little bit of milk left and it kept following us around cause I guess its not satisfied with the feed. I was kinda of freak out with it following us as I dunno whether it will be as fierce as the piglets or not.
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| Mr Love, feeding the lamb |
We then returned the bottles to the co-op and decided to buy carrots this time to feed the rabbits and hamsters. They are priced at NTD 10 per stick and we brought 2.
Mr Love say the rabbits are pretty aggressive when trying the eat the carrots and I still cannot find the courage to feed them though they are caged up. whahah End up being the photographer again. Hehe
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| Rabbits feeding time |
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| Guinea pigs |
Suddenly, we found the lamb coming back to Mr Love again when he/she sees that he is holding to the carrots. Wahah Must be really hungry. Mr Love gave him/her the last bit of carrot though I suspect its not to his/her liking. whahah
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| No More.... |
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| Cat-walking down the run way |
We then found out that there are more goats on the 2nd level and you can purchase bunches of grass to feed them too for NTD 10. Of course must go up. I was so relieve to see them all locked up in the pens. whahah..
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| Brought grass for goaties... |
We brought 1 bunch each and then went up to feed the goats. Man, even feeding them through the pens freaks me out. They were all very aggressive lo. All will squeeze together trying to get a bite of the grass I put through. Many a times, I end up throwing half stalk in as I got scared that they would bite my fingers. Haha.
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| All squeezing together |
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| The bigger goats |
Being Singaporeans, we have no contact with animals from young. Even by going to the zoo, we viewed them outside of their enclosure. Thus, it makes us afraid of them and dun really dare to touch them.
But the locals, I observed even with the kids as young as 3 have no qualms about going near the animals, touching them, showering them with love. I was touched by it. I told hubs, should we have kids in future, I would bring them here when they are old enough to remember and let them go near the animals to expose them to the animals' world
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| Goats coming down during play time |
The last kind of food that they sell here for the animals are fish pellets, NTD 10 for a packet. You can feed the fishes, ducks, turkeys with it. We brought 1 packet and proceed to the pond area.
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| Hot and sunny day |
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| SediA! |
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| Walking, walking, walking |
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| Terkey is its name |
Feeding ducks are no novelty to Mr Love as we did it in 十分 before, and thus he is not as excited as feeding the other animals.
1 funny episode happen though, a duck kept following Mr Love around as it was fed earlier. It didn't give up even when Mr Love went up a platform, instead, it stood patiently there waiting for Mr Love to come down. Whahah. Finally Mr Love fed it the last of the food and it went away knowing that we have no more food. How smart! whahha
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| Feeding the ducks |
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| I wan to eat |
I then decided I wan to check out the gift shop, but to my disappointment, it was closed. Guess its only open on weekends.
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| DIY lambs |
We then proceed to the cafe to try their goat milk ice cream. Surprisingly, there is no goat milk taste in the ice cream. I am very turn off by goat milk you see..
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| Cafe |
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| Goat Milk ice cream |
We left the ranch to cycle back and reached just a little after 2 hrs to return the bikes. Boss didn't charge us any thing extra!hehe.
We had a wonderful time here and its a weekday, the farm is pretty quiet with a few small families visiting. I reckon that there will be more activities during weekends but the crowd would be big too. Thus, we were happy with the way things are. Didn't regret coming to here though I was afraid of the animals.
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| From 罗东运动公园 to 宜农牧羊场 |
http://goat.efarming.org.tw/supergood/front/bin/home.phtml
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