[ad_1] 591 Cuddle lambs at Topsy Farms on Amherst Island? Who wouldn’t want that assignment on their calendar? For years, Ottawa Road Trips readers have been urging me to book a lamb-cuddling experience at Topsy Farms. They sent photos. They sent videos. And they sold me. I just had to get myself organized. You see, lambing season doesn’t last very long—from roughly mid-May to mid-June, says Leah Murray, one of the co-owners of Topsy Farms. And demand to snuggle with the fluffy little guys is high, especially on weekends. When I visited last week, all the weekend spots for the rest of the season were already sold out. However, there were still lots of spaces on weekdays, if you are able to visit then. You do need to book in advance, as the farm doesn’t take walk-in visitors for lamb cuddling. You can just show up to visit the rest of the farm, where you can see older lambs and adult sheep in the fields, visit with cattle, learn about beekeeping, buy yarn and wool items in the farm shop, learn about building dry-stone walls, and more. First, the ferry Because Topsy Farms is on an island, the first step in a lamb-cuddling outing is to board the Amherst Island ferry. The ferry leaves the dock in Millhaven, which is about half an hour west of downtown Kingston and about 20 minutes southeast of Napanee. As of June 2026, the ferry leaves the Milhaven dock once an hour on the half hour and the round trip costs $11 per car. (There are different fees for larger vehicles, motorcycles, bikes and pedestrians.) PLEASE check the ferry schedule online for the latest information, as I’d hate for you to literally miss the boat and your chance for lamb snuggling. On weekdays during the day, you’re probably fine to get to the dock 10 or 15 minutes ahead of departure. On weekends, and at rush hour on weekdays, the lines can be longer, so plan accordingly. Spots are first come, first served. The crossing takes about 20 minutes and is very pleasant. There’s a deck above the car deck where you can enjoy the breeze and the view of Amherst Island. Like Wolfe Island to the east, Amherst is dotted with big wind turbines. Getting to Topsy Farms I booked my lamb experience for 3:30pm, so I took the 2:30pm ferry from Millhaven to the Amherst Island community of Stella. I figured that would give me a few minutes to poke around Stella before driving to Topsy Farms. It turns out that Stella is very small and very quiet on weekdays. The Amherst Island General Store is open Friday through Sunday. The Back Kitchen—a seasonal restaurant known for its Friday fish and chips, Saturday doughnuts and Sunday specials—is open Thursday through Sunday. Rossland Gardens, a combined garden and art gallery outside of town, is open Thursday through Monday. Since I was visiting on a Wednesday, my main option would have been to check out the dunes and birdwatching at Sand Beach Wetlands Conservation Area. That sounded appealing, but I was a woman on a lamb-cuddling mission, and I didn’t want to get distracted by birds, lose track of time and miss my booking. So instead, I pointed my car west and enjoyed a leisurely 10-minute drive to Topsy Farms. It’s only 9km from the ferry dock, but the last few kilometres of the road are gravel, so I took things slowly. That left me a little time to visit the farm shop and walk around. The farm shop and the fields If you like to knit or crochet, you’ll be in heaven at the Topsy Farms shop, which is packed with yarns of every conceivable colour and weight. Tip to my fellow knitters: Come with a pattern or two in hand, so you know how much wool and which weight to buy; the shop doesn’t stock patterns. The shop also sells a range of wool products, including scarves, mittens, socks, toys and blankets. Fun fact: A Topsy Farms blanket showed up in the TV series The Last of Us. After checking out the shop, I paid a visit to some of the older lambs and sheep in the neighbouring field. Soon, it was time to head to the foster lamb shed for my half-hour time slot with some of the farm’s youngest residents. Lamb cuddling! At the entrance to the foster lamb shed, I met Topsy co-owner Leah. Just beyond the shed door, I could hear lambs madly bleating. Leah explained that the foster lambs in this enclosure end up there for a variety of reasons. Perhaps the mother sheep had too many lambs to care for. Sometimes a ewe rejects a lamb for some reason; that happened to one of the wee sheep in the enclosure, who had cataracts. Occasionally, lambs need extra care for a medical issue, such as one lamb with an injured leg. In rare cases, the lambs are orphaned. With 550 ewes on the farm, there’s a steady stream of lambs coming to the shed. They arrive shortly after they’re born and stay until they’re ready to be out in the fields on their own, which usually takes three to five days but can take longer. Leah and her charges. When we entered the shed, the lambs immediately swarmed Leah. She climbed into the pen and distracted them, walking across the piled straw to the far corner and drawing a bleating, leaping, utterly adorably crowd in her wake. That gave me time to quickly slip into the pen, closing the gate behind me. Sensing a new friend—well, more accurately, someone who might possibly be bearing food—the lambs hurtled toward me. OMG, it was delightful. Leah pointed out several little ones by name. I was amazed at her ability to keep them all straight until she directed my eye to the large chalkboard on the shed wall. There, each lamb was listed by name, along with the colour of the harness they were wearing. The board also told their “story”—the reason they’d ended up in the foster lamb shed. She also explained to me how to lift and hold a lamb. In a nutshell, you grasp them securely around the middle and hold them straight up (not on their back, like a baby), making sure to support their feet so they don’t dangle. I found that last instruction weirdly hard to follow, as Leah had to keep reminding me. I think I was so distracted by the lambs’ cute little heads that I just forgot about the rest of them. I haven’t quite mastered supporting little lamb feet yet. Photo by Leah Murray. And then, I was off for my 30 minutes of lamb cuddling. They really are joyous little critters to be around. They butt your legs, battle with each other, chew anything they can reach. Sometimes, they just spring into the air for no reason at all. I asked Leah about that, and she explained that they’re still getting used to their legs and just like to test them out to see what they can do. You don’t have to pick up the lambs if you’re not comfortable doing so. You can pet them as they mill around you, or just delight in their antics from a little distance. When it comes to lamb cuddling, a picture really is worth a thousand words. So here are a few more. Feeding time If you time your visit right (ask the farm for details), you may be around for feeding time. That’s a complete hoot and well worth seeing if you can. Leah calls it “complete chaos,” and that’s pretty accurate. At feeding time, which happens four times a day, a few farm workers and volunteers climb into a pen with a large bucket fitted with a bunch of nipples. The bucket is full of liquid formula. The humans do traffic control while the lambs lunge at the feeder. One of the humans’ key jobs is to keep the lambs from eating too much, as that can seriously harm or even kill them. Once they’ve detached a lamb from the feeder, they pop that lamb into another enclosure until everyone has had their turn. Then the feeder is packed up and the lambs are let back into their pen. Then the tiniest lambs are bottle fed in a separate pen. The best part? While eating, lambs wag their tails like tiny fluffy propellers. Oh, the cuteness! Tips for aspiring lamb snugglers Make sure you get to the farm on time. Especially on weekends, time slots are fully booked, so you won’t have the option to switch to another time if you miss yours. Bring all the equipment you like to take photos and videos, as you’ll definitely want a few keepsakes of the experience, but don’t spend your whole half-hour observing the lambs through a phone screen or a camera lens. One of the joys of Topsy Farms is getting away from gadgets. If you’re not comfortable being on your feet for half an hour, don’t worry, as there are a couple of chairs in the pen you can sit on. You’ll probably want a backpack or some other sort of bag to stash your gear in after you’ve taken your photos. Word to the wise: Leave said bag outside the lamb enclosure, or it might become a lamb snack. Wear clothing and shoes that you don’t mind getting dirty. As Leah points out, lambs aren’t toilet trained. They’re also prodigious nibblers, and they were fascinated with my beat-up, wide-legged jeans. Fortunately, since sheep are grass eaters, their teeth aren’t sharp. Note that pregnant women are not allowed to visit with lambs, for health reasons. How to book your lamb visit If you want to visit on a weekend, you might want to start checking the Topsy Farms website regularly in March and April, to see when the bookings open up. As soon as they do, snag your spot to avoid disappointment. If you’re visiting during the week, you’ll probably have more flexibility. I booked my Wednesday afternoon visit a week in advance, and Leah said they only had three visits booked that day. As I write this in spring 2026, the fee for a half-hour lamb visit for up to six people is $40 per group. If you’re visiting with more people than that, you’ll need to make additional bookings. The lamb pen can only comfortably accommodate six people, plus a Topsy Farms staffer and, of course, all the lambs. Here’s where you can book your lamb visit. Topsy’s hippie story The story of Topsy’s origins could be a whole other post. Fortunately, the farm itself has told the tale in a post on its website. The farm’s origins go back to New Year’s Eve in 1971, when a group of idealistic hippies (including Leah’s parents) bought the property to set up a commune. They officially disbanded the commune in June 1975, with several of the partners and a friend buying out the others and continuing to run the farm on a more traditional basis. If you go to Topsy Farms Topsy Farms is 236km southwest of Parliament Hill, if you take highways 416 and 401. More scenic routes along Highway 7 and either Highway 15 or County Road 38 are shorter in distance but will take a bit longer to drive. The drive will take about three to three and a half hours, depending on the route you choose. That timing includes the ferry ride. Don’t forget to check check the ferry schedule. Since Amherst Island is a significant drive from Ottawa, you might want to stay overnight. Good idea! I had a great stay at the Fox Motor Inn in Napanee. Honestly, the place was spotless and the bed was so comfortable that I slept like a rock. You can use the map below to book that spot or other places to stay in and around Napanee and Kingston. Note that I’ll receive a small commission if you use the Fox link above or the map below to book accommodation, at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting this website! As the owner of Ottawa Road Trips, I acknowledge that I live on, work in and travel through the unceded, unsurrendered territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg Nation. I am grateful to have the opportunity to be present on this land. Ottawa Road Trips supports Water First, a non-profit organization that helps address water challenges in Indigenous communities in Canada through education, training and meaningful collaboration. [ad_2] Source link
