Hi.
Welcome to our family farmstead. Hope you have a nice stay!
Welcome to our family farmstead. Hope you have a nice stay!
Our guided rides are for ages 15 and older, unless the child has had 1-2 years of riding experience. This is because we have full-sized horses and gear (i.e. no ponies), and because the rider is responsible for stopping, steering, and guiding their horse over a variety of terrains independently for the duration of the hour-long ride. Anyone under the age of 18 must be accompanied by a legal guardian for their ride.
Our kids’ camps and private riding lessons are appropriate for children younger than 15 years of age.
We love and respect all bodies at Foxfire Farm, and in the interest of also caring for our horses’ bodies, we have a cut-off weight of 250 lbs.
Our guided trail rides generally last for approximately one hour.
We limit our rides to 5-6 guests at a time.
Our guided trail rides (to include the Trail Ride and Wine Tasting Experience) are geared toward beginner riders and are meant to be opportunities for everyone – even someone who has never ridden before – to enjoy time on horseback. As such, we stick to a walk during our rides so that all guests feel comfortable and remain safe.
However, if your group purchases or fills up an entire time slot on a weekend day (a group of 5), and all members of the group are advanced riders, we can accommodate a faster pace. If you are a more advanced rider who can competently trot, canter, handle steep inclines and declines, obstacles, water crossings, etc., we do offer the ability to book a private, advanced ride. Those rides take place during the weekdays, as our weekend days are filled with the standard guided, beginner-friendly trail rides.
We are a small, family-run business, so we do schedule around our family’s calendar of activities. Generally, we aim to open the calendars one to two months in advance, so if there is a particular day in the future that you are interested in booking, keep an eye on our website for the new dates around 4-6 weeks ahead of your desired date.
For our organized events where other groups of people can participate, we do not allow folks to bring their own horse. We do not know how an outside horse will behave during a ride or how the dynamics between a particular outside horse and one of our trail horses will play out, and we cannot allow our other guests (who are usually beginner riders) to be put in a position to handle a potentially hairy situation. However, we do allow trailer-ins to use our trails, trail obstacle course, arena, etc., and we schedule those during off-hours outside of our organized events.
If you would like to set up a trailer-in, please email shari@foxfirefarmmd.com. If you haul in, you can opt to have a guided ride or to go out on your own. If your group needs to also lease a Foxfire Farm horse for the day’s ride, a Foxfire Farm guide’s presence is required.
No, we do not lease our horses out by the day for unsupervised riding.
Trail rides will be cancelled if weather.com reports greater than a 70% chance of precipitation or high wind advisories in zip code 20613. We will also cancel rides on days following heavy rain or snowfall. Cancellation emails are sent to the email address you book with, and phone calls are placed to the number you provided (voicemails will be left if there is no answer). We strive to give as much advance notice as possible, and we will endeavor to reschedule your ride.
If a guest cancels their ride more than 48-hours in advance, a full refund will be issued within 3-business days. If cancelled fewer than 48-hours in advance, no refund will be provided.
At the bottom of the confirmation email you received when you booked via our website, there is a button labeled “Change/Cancel Appointment.” Click it, and adjust your booking accordingly.
Foxfire Farm coordinates, staffs, & prepares horses in advance of our rides based on the bookings that we receive, and we have a limited number of bookings available in any given week. We typically have multiple rides scheduled on the same day, and most are usually full. There are usually other riders booked in the same time slot that you are. Out of fairness to those other riders in your time slot, as well as the riders in the time slots after yours, and in consideration of our horses' workloads and our staff's time, we cannot hold up the group to wait for you if you are running late. Please plan to allow for traffic and the unexpected and arrive a little ahead of your ride time. If you are not present at your ride time, you will forfeit your ride, and you will not receive a refund.
YES.
We are a private, family farm located off of Baden Naylor Road in the Baden area of Brandywine, Prince George’s County, MD. All visitors must have a pre-arranged appointment or booking before stopping by. In the confirmation email for that booking, there will be detailed directions and instructions for meeting us. Depending on the reason for your visit to our farm, you may be meeting us at the winery, at our main barn, at the poultry barn, or at our trail barn. Please carefully read the address and instructions on your confirmation email for meet-up details.
We provide the address for meeting us upon booking or scheduling an appointment, depending on the activity you are scheduling.
We are a private, family farm, and our family lives on-site. We also have a private boarding barn and a full schedule of farm chores, lessons, training, etc., throughout the week, in addition to our outside, personal schedules. Because of this, we cannot accommodate spontaneous visitors. Please schedule an appointment before visiting us.
We are currently full, but please email shari@foxfirefarmmd.com in order to be added to our waiting list!
We have a variety of horses for any experience level available for half lease on weekdays, two days per week. Most of our horses work in the trail program during the weekends, so half leasers usually pick two days between Monday and Thursday to come out and visit and ride their leased horse. On occasion, one of our boarders will have their horse available for lease and can accommodate weekend days, as well. Cost is generally $225-$250 per month, with 30 days’ notice to terminate. You will have access to all of the horse’s tack, the trails, arena, obstacle course, etc. Our leasing program is usually pretty full, but please email to check availability: shari@foxfirefarmmd.com
We don't have a volunteer program in place, per se, but we would certainly be interested in speaking with you if you are interested in offering your time. Please send an email to shari@foxfirefarmmd.com, and let us know a bit about your background and experience, your schedule/availability, and what things you are or are not interested in helping with.
We are always looking for experienced, motivated trail guides and on occasion have openings for barn help. Please email shari@foxfirefarmmd.com and let us know about yourself, your experience, and your schedule, and we can see if there is a good fit!
Please visit our store for our current inventory of started pullets. Once you have placed your order online, you will receive a confirmation email instructing you to book an appointment on our pick-up calendar.
We strive to keep a variety of breeds on hand and usually have a white, brown, chocolate, green, and blue egg-laying breed available. Our inventory can be found at www.foxfirefarmmd.com/store
We are not a breeder. We order our day-old chicks pre-sexed female from NPIP-certified hatcheries, and we raise them to point-of-lay.
All orders must be placed through the website, as we are required to keep a record of customers and purchases for our NPIP registration and so that we can have the birds ready in advance for pick up. Once someone places an order online, they receive a confirmation with instructions on setting up day and time of pick up. We don’t allow folks into our chicken area to pick and choose the chickens because we usually have several open orders awaiting pickup and cannot throw off inventory. Additionally, we are required to maintain strict bio security around our flock - particularly with the recent outbreaks in avian flu - as we have many folks with flocks of their own visiting the farm.
Not at this time.
Yes! Please place your order online.
Sexing is an art, not a science, and is around 95% accurate, so we do occasionally have roosters sneak into our batches. If that happens, we are happy to exchange the rooster for a hen.
Not at this time, but we are working on that.
We usually have a handful available and charge a $5 rehoming fee. Please email shari@foxfirefarmmd.com if you would like to add a rooster to your order.
Most breeds begin laying between 18 and 22 weeks of age. A variety of factors can impact that time frame, including time of the year, amount of light available, diet, molting, etc., however this is the standard age to begin laying.
