Farm Animals (See How They Grow)

Farm Animals is one of the ten direct-to-video programmes produced by Dorling Kindersley Vision as part of the See How They Grow series. It was one of the earlier five programmes, released on VHS on 31st May 1993. This programme looks at the life-cycles of four domesticated animals.

## Sections

Click here for the full transcript of Farm Animals.

### Chick

The programme opens by showing the mother chicken sitting on her eggs. One of the eggs is shown hatching, before the chick runs off to join his mother and the rest of his siblings. At one hour old, the chicks follow their mother when she goes to eat seeds, then has a drink and finally passes through a pipe. At eight days old, the chicks have started to grow their feathers. At four weeks old, the cockerel is introduced and the chicks, whose combs are starting to grow, investigate a house that is occupied by a duck. Finally, the fully-grown chickens investigate and then chase away a frog that was sitting in their water bowl.

### Pig

The second part opens with a sleeping sow laying next to her ten piglets. Their father is using a nearby wallow and comes to investigate when the piglets wake up and start suckling. When the sow wakes up and goes off to feed, the piglets dig around in the hay to look for food. At three weeks old, the piglets are shown eating pignuts before going back to sleep in their straw. Finally, the piglets are shown at six months old and nearly as big as their parents. They are first shown rooting around in the grass for food before they finally discover and start using their father’s mud wallow.

### Calf

The third part opens by showing the mother cow with her newborn calf. The calf stands for the first time and then starts to take milk from its mother’s udder. At four weeks old, the calf is kept in a separate stall where it meets other calves and watches its mother feeding. At eight weeks old, the calves are shown eating cownuts and being bothered by flies; they all share the same large barn. Finally, the cows are shown at two years old and fully grown. They are out in the fields feeding on grass and at the end of the episode they are brought in for milking.

### Lamb

The final part begins by showing a mother ewe with her two newborn lambs, which get to their feet and take a drink of milk. After a few weeks, the lambs are shown having grown up a lot on their mother’s milk. They see a black lamb and leave their barn to go out and play with her, also encountering grass for the first time. A brief interlude plays, in which the mother sheep has been shorn. It then cuts back to the lambs, who are older now and going off by themselves. They find and play with a bale of straw by jumping on and over it. They also find a rabbit, who briefly goes into their stall before returning to its burrow.

## Species list, in order of appearance

### Filmed in studio:

The section each species appears in are bracketed:

* Domestic chicken, *Gallus domesticus* (Chick, Calf)
* Mallard, *Anas platyrhynchos* (Chick)
* European common frog, *Rana temporaria* (Chick)
* Domestic pig, *Sus domesticus* (Pig)
* Domestic cattle, *Bos taurus* (Calf)
* Domestic sheep, *Ovis aries* (Lamb)
* European rabbit, *Oryctolagus cuniculus* (Lamb)

## Credits

* Special thanks to:
	+ David Overton
	+ Andrew Thompson
* Narrator - Johnny Morris
* Script - Sally-Anne Gordon
* Research - Clara Jollands
* Animal Handlers - John Vincent, Lionel Bailey and Christopher Rabone
* Camera Operators - Eddie McCaffrey and Tom Gordon
* Lighting - Roddy Gibson
* Set Construction - John Vincent
* Music - Luis Gordon
* On-Line Editors - Bill Ogden and John Pearce
* VT Assistance - Peter Williams
* Title Graphics - Leigh Wimporey
* Animation Sequences - Ealing Animation
	+ Animator - Jody Gannon
	+ Colourer - Vivien Redmond
* Dubbing Mixer - Steve Rogers
* Production Assistants - Adam Gordon, Tim Coxon and Paul Hitchman
* Producer and Director - Tom Gordon

## Home media releases

The UK VHS release of Farm Animals shows four piglets standing in a row at the bottom of the cover, with a sheep and two lambs on the top-left and a Jersey cow with a laying calf on the top-right of the cover. Above the 'See How They Grow' logo is an artwork showing a chicken and chicks, while a sheep and lamb artwork is at the bottom of the cover.

An original version of the UK cover has hand-drawn cartoons of pigs, chickens and sheep in the middle of the cover, which is bordered by a blue border decorated with eggs. A drawing of a laying calf is shown in the 'See How They Grow' logo.

The Sony Wonder VHS release shows a Jersey cow with a laying calf on the bottom of the cover, with three chicks on the top-left and a sheep and a lamb on the top-right of the screen. Above the 'See How They Grow' logo is a series of hand-drawn artworks showing a calf growing up into an adult cow.

Farm Animals has also been released in multi-episode formats. In the UK, a combined VHS for Farm Animals and Pets was released, while in the USA Farm Animals was part of a Volume One release that also combined Pets, Insects and Spiders and Pond Animals.

## Further information

Calf is almost unique among all the segments in See How They Grow, as the fully-grown animals are filmed outside and not in an indoor set (Duck in Pond Animals also had outdoor sequences, and Sea Animals had outdoor sequences as well as ones filmed in a public aquarium).

All four animals in this programme were included in the original book titles; Chick and Lamb published in 1992 while Pig and Calf were published in 1993.