hips don't lie: Glamping: Feather Down farm holidays...where you can even hire a chicken for your stay!

By

Robert Hardman

PUBLISHED:

12:39 EST, 6 July 2013

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UPDATED:

12:39 EST, 6 July 2013

We all have checklists when it comes to holidays. For some, the prerequisite is a view or peace and quiet. Others will be swayed by a pool or nightlife. In our case, it was chickens.

For months, my five-year-old daughter had been regaling us with tales of a schoolfriend who had gone on holiday in a tent at a farm with a chicken.

This, I explained to her, was ‘a camping holiday’, a miserable experience where every father gets very cross putting up a tent that leaks and everyone goes home ill, wet and crying.

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Mucking in: Farm holidays offer kids the chance to step away from the TV and get experience the great outdoors

But the nagging continued. Quietly, I began to explore the idea of camping with all the mod cons and everything pre-erected, known as glamping.

It seemed to offer all the pros of camping — fresh air, no telly, cooking over a fire — with none of the downsides, such as pitching a tent. So, the glad tidings were announced: we would go camping after all. For a little bit.

Instead of the anticipated jumping for joy, however, there were crossed arms and a cross face. ‘But, Daddy, what about the chickens?’ And that’s when a friend mentioned Feather Down Farm Holidays. The tents not only had wooden floors but, for a tenner, you could rent chickens.

Thus, it was joy unconfined as we set off for a long weekend under canvas alongside two chickens (pre-named, after much debate, as Chicky and Emily).

Feather Down turns out to have been invented in Holland ten years ago, was exported here in 2006 and is now spread across 30 farms from Cumbria to Cornwall.

The company teams up with a working farm, which creates an area for a cluster of tents: a cross between a posh safari and Little House On The Prairie.

There is a large dining area — with indoor and outdoor tables — and a big wood-fired stove in the centre next to what can only be described as a kitchen. There’s even a sink with running water.

To the rear is a flushing loo, a double bedroom, smaller room with bunk beds and an extremely snug single bed in a cupboard.

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Lay a little egg for me: Families can hire chickens for the duration of their stay – but must take care of them

Our two girls refused to sleep anywhere else.

We

stayed at Hillside Farm, a traditional sheep farm run by three

generations of the delightful Taylor family, at the western tip of

Wales’s majestic Gower peninsula.

Spread around a large field were four tents. Sure enough, our two chickens were waiting for us in their coop.

To cap it all, there was a pen in the middle of the field with four lambs and a rabbit.

What

with all that and a tractor, too, our 18-monthold son was beside

himself. This was, unquestionably, the single most exciting moment of

his entire life.

Because cars are left on the other side of a gate and it’s a long way to the nearest road, children are even more freerange than the chickens.

The idea is idiot-proof — almost. Next to the tents is a block with hot showers and a 24-hour honesty shop where you can find everything the absent-minded camping novice might need in a hurry, from firelighters to bacon.

All the basics are included anyway, including unlimited ice bags for the chest-sized ice box and pre-loaded paraffin lamps.

The only thing missing is a dishwasher.

But my wife Diana and I still struggled with the stove. After two hours, night was falling and the sausages were still not sizzling in the pan.

I knocked on the farmhouse door and Ellen Taylor came down to get the logs going, before taking my pan of sausages back to the farmhouse.

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Under canvas, but not as you not it: a Feather Down Farms tent

A quarter of an hour later, she handed them back, beautifully cooked. The Gower has plenty of beaches, though none beats award-winning Rhosilli Bay, a five-minute drive from the farm. This three-mile stretch of sand and dunes has masses of room for children and surfers, plus the odd wreck at low tide, too.

On a sunny day, it’s one of the finest spots in the British Isles to build a sandcastle.

And if the weather turns, then the great thing about Wales is that you’re never far from a castle.

Most

are run by Cadw, the Welsh heritage body, from the mighty Raglan and

White Castles on the border to Criccieth and Caernarfon in the wild

west. On the Gower, Weobley and Oxwich Castles are just a short drive

away.

But there is plenty

to do on the farm, too. Ellen’s son-in-law took us on a tour of the 165

acres, including a round-up by Meg the sheepdog.

Come

nightfall, there was no problem getting everyone to sleep (no sleeping

bags needed as the tent comes with duvets). Our three were all

bushwhacked.

Quaffing a large glass of Chianti by the light of an oil lamp, accompanied by nothing more than the bleat of a lamb and the gentle snore of a toddler, is surely one of life’s great holiday moments.

But if we all had a magical time, I cannot say the same for Chicky and Emily. They never seemed to lay a thing — until our last morning. Our girls rushed in shrieking that six eggs were in our rent-a-coop. At which point, Ellen walked past and gave me a cheerful wink.

That’s the great thing about this sort of camping.

It’s not nature as it really is. It’s nature as it ought to be.

Travel facts

Feather Down Farms (01420 80804, featherdown.co.uk) offers tents sleeping up to six (maximum five adults) at weekends from £315, mid-week from £265. A week is from £445.