Animal Care Team Lead

Visitthefarm; Candia (NH); On-site; USD 42,000 - 65,000; Full time

Job summary

Charmingfare Farm in New Hampshire seeks an experienced farm caretaker to join our team as a lead handler for horses, cattle and other livestock. This is a real working farm with hay operations, year-round events, and seasonal sleigh rides.

You must be able to lead and learn quickly in a dynamic outdoor environment. You’ll perform daily care, health checks, record-keeping, and pasture maintenance, and you’ll help run haying and farm operations while supporting events both onsite and offsite.

Qualifications

• Paid experience caring for horses and livestock is required.
• Ability to lead animal care and farm operations.
• Reliability and comfort working outdoors in all seasons.

Responsibilities

• Prepare diets and feed for a range of species
• Feed and perform daily health checks
• Keep animal records up to date
• Maintain enclosures and pastures
• Help run haying and farm operations
• Lead animal care during events (Christmas season and sleigh rides)
• Support animal care at onsite and offsite events

Skills

Animal handling

Livestock care

Lead responsibilities

Job description

We need someone with real, paid experience handling horses and livestock who can step into a lead role here. This is a real working farm – we run our own hay operations, host farm events year-round, and ramp up hard for Christmas season with sleigh rides whenever we get snow. It’s physical, outdoor work in every season, and the animals need care every day, including weekends and holidays. If you want a role where the work is real and the days aren’t the same twice, this is it.

You’re not learning animal care from scratch. You already know how to work safely and confidently around large animals – what you’ll need from us is a quick orientation to our specific animals, routines, and property, and you’re ready to lead.

What you’ll do:

You’ll handle daily care for our full animal collection – horses, cattle, other farm livestock, and North American wildlife species. Day to day:

• Prepare diets and feed for a range of species
• Feed and do daily health checks
• Keep animal records up to date
• Maintain enclosures and pastures
• Help run haying and farm operations
• Lead animal care during our events – including our Christmas season and sleigh rides
• Help run animal care at our onsite and offsite events

You need to have been paid to do this work before – not just grown up around animals or helped out on weekends. Someone who can walk onto a new farm, look at an animal, and know right away what’s normal and what’s not.

What you need:

• Paid experience caring for horses and livestock – required
• Comfortable handling large animals on your own: leading, loading, health checks, spotting illness or injury early
• Ready for physical outdoor work in every season, including a busy holiday stretch
• Can pick up new routines and a new property fast
• Reliable transportation, shows up when scheduled
• Weekends and holidays – animals need care every day, no exceptions
• Must be 18 years or older

Join us in making a difference at Charmingfare Farm!