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Farm Animals

Which animals live on farms?

Farm animals include domesticated animals people raise and wild animals that use barns, ponds, pasture and field edges. This collection shows examples from both groups. Water buffalo and alpacas are examples of domesticated farm animals. Barn swallows, cattle egrets and barn owls can find food or shelter around farms without being kept there. Each photo leads to a profile, so you can see which sort of connection an animal has with farms.

Browse 80 animals

Animals people raise

Farms keep different animals depending on the climate, available land and the work people do there. Water buffalo are raised in parts of Asia for milk, meat and work, including in wet agricultural landscapes. Alpacas, domesticated in the Andes, are raised for their fibre. Compare the two photographs and think about how each animal’s build and coat suit its surroundings. A single species can have several roles, and a photo from one farm cannot tell you which role it has on another.

Wild neighbours in fields and barns

A farm can contain very different places for wildlife. A swallow may catch flying insects over a field and use a sheltered ledge for a nest. A cattle egret may follow grazing animals and pick up insects they flush from the grass. A barn owl can hunt small mammals in open ground and use a suitable building or tree cavity for shelter. Field edges, hedges and ponds add places for animals that would find little cover in the middle of a cultivated field.

Compare what each animal gets from a farm

Start with one domesticated animal and one wild visitor. Write down what each gets from the farm: food supplied by people, prey it finds for itself, a place to rest or a place to raise young. Some profiles describe wild populations of species that also have domesticated forms. The European rabbit is one example. Read the profile before using a picture as an example of a particular breed or a specific kind of livestock.

Farm Animals List