Find your place in the field of good food

Our goal is to connect good people with good food. We advertise sustainable food jobs and training opportunities to help jobseekers and employers find each other.

Job description

Sacrewell is a popular Farm Attraction located to the west of Peterborough with 100,000 visitors per year. We are part of the William Scott Abbott Trust, an agricultural education charity with over 50 years of history. Our programmes focus on farming, sustainability, education and land stewardship.

The trust seeks to create a safe, accessible, fun and enriching educational environment for all visitors. We want to help our visitors make real-life connections to food, farming and the countryside, and our aim is that every visitor has the chance to explore, experience and enjoy.

This is an amazing opportunity to be a part of our agricultural educational journey and we need someone fantastic to be a part of our team. This is an exciting time within The William Scott Abbott Trust at Sacrewell; and we are looking for someone to help with the day to day care of our animals as well as to help support us in our future growth.

The Livestock Assistant is part of the team responsible for the safe management and care of all the animals kept both in our indoor and outdoor enclosures. We are looking for a strong candidate that will be responsible for the general care and safe-keeping of our animals. Tasks include, but are not limited to, mucking out, dietary and food preparation, exercise planning and provision, adhering to the five freedoms, land management, carrying out health checks and providing day to day medical management, as well as helping with our rare breed programme. In addition to caring for the animals and interacting with customers, the ideal candidate will also be confident to carry out education based sessions to school and college groups as part of our new educational offerings. Therefore, it is expected that the role be filled by an individual who is both knowledgeable and competent, but can also be adaptable to a customer base containing a variety of ages.

Due to the nature of the business, regular weekend and bank holiday work is required. This includes flexibility over the Christmas period.

Occasionally situations may arise that require the post holder to perform other duties or tasks as may be reasonably requested by the Trust. In addition, all employees are expected to adhere to the Trust’s commitment to providing a safe and positive working environment for all.

Key responsibilities

• Provide high quality, comprehensive safe management, and care of animals.
• Large and small animal handling.
• Administration of medication and treatment.
• Outdoor working and manual labour.
• Lead education sessions and interact with customers.
• Identify new opportunities to drive continuous improvement with the Livestock department.

Essential experience

• Relevant animal qualification and/or experience working with a variety of animals.
• Experience working outdoors.
• Customer service.

Desirable experience

• Working/ operating machinery and equipment.
• Experience breeding different species of animals – lambing, calving etc
• Experience working with heavy horses.
• Health and safety within the leisure business and animal care industry.

Essential skills and attributes

• Ability to use own initiative.
• Compassionate and empathetic husbandry skills.
• Ability to manage physical labour on a day to day basis.
• Ability to manage flexible working hours – lambing season, sick cover, Christmas.
• Ability to interact with customers confidently and kindly.
• Organised and reliable.
• An eye for detail and high standards of animal husbandry.
• Willingness to learn and develop.
• Ability to work both as a part of a team and independently.
• Passion and motivation to provide the best care and environment for all animals on site.

Please note that we are currently in lambing season, thus are working on a split shift basis to feed our cade lambs. Ability to work late is essential within this period.

Hours: 37.5 hours per week on average – actual hours will reflect the seasonal needs of the centre with variable peak and off-peak season hours to reflect the seasonal needs of the Trust. (1950 hours per annum)

Reports to Livestock Manager.

Job Types: Full-time, Permanent

Salary: £19,000.00-£23,000.00 per year

Benefits:

• Company pension
• On-site parking

Schedule:

• Weekend availability

Ability to commute/relocate:

• Peterborough, Cambridgeshire: reliably commute or plan to relocate before starting work (required)

Application question(s):

• Please provide a brief description as to why you believe you are suitable for the role.

Work Location: One location

Application deadline: 31/03/2023 Expected start date: 10/04/2023

Application information

Email a CV and covering letter to our livestock manager Noah: noah.rose@sacrewell.org.uk

Please mention Roots to Work when applying for these jobs