Current herd and farmstead conditions

The herd currently includes:

• two donkeys
• one miniature horse
• two alpacas
• three llamas
• one Appaloosa horse

The animals are at Eby Farmstead from the Victoria Day weekend until after Thanksgiving weekend. The animals spend the winter months being boarded at a private farm. The animals are well cared for with regular veterinary visits; the City is meeting its duty of care set by the “National Farm Animal Care Council Code of Practice for the Care and Handling of Farm Animals.” The age of the herd has been a point of conversation with the two donkeys, one of the llamas and one of the alpacas in their senior years and reaching the average life expectancy for their breeds.

One full time staff member and three post-secondary summer students (generally with an agricultural background, are members of 4H or students attending post secondary animal care programs) care for the animals. The City has a veterinarian on retainer to care for the animals should the need arise. Staff make multiple daily visits to the Eby Farmstead to feed and care for the animals, but does not maintain a permanent staff presence at the Farmstead.

The Eby Farmstead currently occupies 8,539 square meters of space (2.1 acres) at Waterloo Park, on the East side of the park near the promenade, ION rail corridor and an active network of trails. Drainage problems exist throughout the site which can result in ruts and gullies within the animal enclosures. The animal enclosures have direct access to the public 24 hours a day. Since Eby Farmstead doesn’t have a secondary perimeter fence, there is an inability to establish operational hours to provide the herd with time to rest. The lack of sufficient pasture and grazing areas for the animals is also a frequently observed and reported concern from visitors.

With the ION train running directly beside the herds enclosures, the animals are subject to noise from 5:45 a.m. to 12:45 a.m. daily. In addition to the ION, this rail corridor is used to move freight through the core of Waterloo. The herd also experiences visitors 24 hours a day as the community uses the park to travel through the core of the City. The popularity of Waterloo Park attracts large crowds and is a host location to many festivals and events, and the extended hours of events and larger festivals subject the animals to prolonged disturbances.

The animal enclosure consists of chain-link fence and open-air wood frame structures that are dated and are not representative of the financial invest that the City has recently made at Waterloo Park with the shoreline improvements, accessible playground, ball diamonds 3 & 4 and the improvements to the parking area at Father David Baurer Drive. In 2018 with the introduction of the Central Promenade the animal enclosures were marginally reduced in size to facilitate construction. At this time, the chain-link fence on the west side of the enclosures was upgraded.

In 2024 the bird enclosure will be removed to make way for the expansion of the Eby Farm accessible playground. The birds that historically were on display in the Park were removed from the park in 2020 as a precautionary measure of the Avian Influenz. In 2023 the birds were gifted to the caretaker that had been caring for them.

In 2022 the llamas were moved to another enclosure to meet their needs. There are plans to remove the former llama compound during the expansion of the accessible playground; this area will be topsoiled, seeded, and returned to open space. With the removal of the bird and llama enclosure a total of 3782 m2 of open space will be freed up to be used as public space. This leaves a remaining 4,757 m2 (1.18 acres) of space occupied for the operation of the Eby Farmstead. Best practice for livestock grazing suggests that rotational grazing areas should be provided and depending on the livestock should range in size from 3-5 llamas or alpacas per acre and .5 acres per donkey.