Ross Farm Animal Care

Ross Farm Museum: Animal Care Update – August 18, 2025

We know many of you have had questions and concerns about the animals at Ross Farm Museum — and we’ve taken them to heart. With guidance from veterinarians and animal care experts, we’ve made big improvements across the farm.

Below is a summary of recommendations from the Province’s Farm Animal Welfare Program and the steps we’ve taken to address them.

The entire team here is committed to providing the highest quality of animal care while preserving the spirit of Ross Farm as a living heritage museum.  We welcome you to visit us and see the changes for yourself.

If you have any questions or concerns, we invite you to contact us at rossfarm@novascotia.ca.

Water

Recommendation: Ensure all animals have constant access to clean, palatable water.

Actions Taken:

  • Installed automatic watering stations for all farm animals.
  • Water stations are inspected daily and sterilized twice a week.
  • Areas without automatic stations have large containers that are filled daily and sterilized at least once a week.

 

Nutrition

Recommendation: Improve feed programs and address weight concerns for the horses.

Actions Taken:

  • Implemented a veterinarian-designed feeding program for the horses.
  • Redesigned horse feeding room to support more complex diets.
  • Maximized pasture access for all animals.​

 

Exercise

Recommendation: Provide regular exercise for all animals, especially horses and oxen.

Actions Taken:

  • Hired an oxen teamster to create a daily work and exercise plan.
  • Oxen are turned out into the paddock for 3+ hours daily.
  • Horses are turned out to pasture or paddock for 4+ hours daily.

 

Medical Care

Recommendation: Complete regular health checks; improve hoof and parasite control.

Actions Taken:

  • Created basic health checklists that are completed daily.
  • Built stronger relationships with local veterinarians and care specialists.
  • Hired a skilled, local farrier to provide corrective shoeing.
  • Improved bedding in the horse stalls to take pressure off feet.
  • Horses will not be used for wagon rides in 2025.
     

Facilities

Recommendation: Improve horse stalls and increase access to pastures and paddocks.

Actions Taken:

  • Renovated horse stables with larger stalls, better flooring and improved airflow.
  • Expanded pastures and built two additional horse paddocks.
  • Added sunshades to all horse paddocks. (Pastures have natural shade.)

 

Governance and Oversight

Recommendation: Strengthen governance, improve records management and clarify roles and responsibilities.

Actions Taken:

  • Updated daily care routines for all animals.
  • Updated operations manual, including a revised section on animal care.
  • Updated Animal Care Policy using best practices from the Department of Agriculture and the Association of Living History, Farms and Agricultural Museums.
  • Hired more animal care staff and reduced animal numbers to ensure manageable workloads.
  • Increased frequency of visits from the Farm Animal Welfare Program, including unannounced inspections.
  • Ongoing support, site visits and monitoring from Nova Scotia Museum staff.
  • Developing an improved record keeping system for medical and vaccination records (in progress).
  • Planning training session on board governance and respectful workplaces for fall 2025.

For more details on the veterinary evaluations and recommendations, you can download the Farm Animal Welfare Program reports.

 

Ross Farm Museum:Update – August 1, 2025

At Ross Farm, we understand why people are concerned, and we take these concerns to heart. To ensure everyone has the complete picture, we're sharing the most recent report from the Farm Animal Welfare Program, along with the first two reports from January and April. Together, these documents show the issues we identified, the progress we've made, and the work still ahead.

We know there's much more to do, and that it all can’t happen at once. Presenting outdated information as though it reflects our current situation doesn't help anyone. Most of the issues mentioned in this post have been resolved — and we’re working hard on the rest of them.  

Ross Farm will soon be sharing a more detailed update about animal care on our Facebook page. In the meantime, if you have questions or would like to discuss this further, feel free to reach out to me at marc.tasse@novascotia.ca. 

Reports

Ross-Farm-Museum-FAW-Reports (PDF 705 KB)