NEW GLOUCESTER — A bit unsure but smiling, Finley Joyal, who’s 3 (but almost 4) patted a chicken Saturday.

“This is Henny Penny. She’s really soft,” said Pineland Farms education staffer Britt Moon.

Finley also collected organic eggs.

“You hold the basket,” the little girl said. “You take one or two eggs. You pick them up really carefully. I got one peck by one chicken. I’m also going to milk a cow. I’ve never milked a cow before.”

Pineland Farms opened its family farm for the summer Saturday.

Parents, grandparents and children came to see chickens, rabbits, goats, piglets, sheep and horses, and to participate in games and face-painting.

“We love it,” said Finley’s mother, Courtney Joyal. “She loves farm animals. She’s having her birthday party at a different farm.”

Saturday marked the fifth year of the summer farmyard, said education coordinator Cathryn Anderson.

“We lease animals from local area farms for educational purposes,” she said. “This year we’ve had a focus on heritage breeds, breeds people probably aren’t familiar with.”

One was a litter of six piglets, which Anderson called Hungarian hogs, or Mangalitsa pigs from the Old Crow Ranch in Durham. “Only two farms have them in Maine,” Anderson said. “They have a sheep-type fleece, which is really great.”

In the 1800s in Hungary, the pigs were created by breeding wild boars with lard pigs. The breed almost died out but was revived in the 1990s.

Black-and-white-spotted Randall cows, another heritage breed at the farm, seemed to be as friendly as black Labs. Randall cows used to be common on farms in the Eastern United States but nearly died out. Today their status is listed as critical.

The animals “are just for the summertime,” Anderson said. In addition to future family farmyard events, the animals star in programs, “Chatty Chickens,” “Udderly Amazing Cows,” “Ice Cream Making” which shows children where milk comes from, and “Tractors and Trucks,” in which children are shown how different machinery is used to feed and care for animals.

The goal of the family farmyard “is to bring families out to see what Pineland has to offer,” Anderson said. The programs help “connect folks to their farms in their area, to educate them about where their food is coming from.”

Nick and Jodi Sotiropoulos of Falmouth brought 18-month-old Theo.

“He likes zebras, but he also likes cows, as you can see,” the young mother said.

Two sons of Kathleen Pigeon and Bev Gabe of Gorham were meeting Snowball, a five-month-old Jersey calf from the Moon Farm in Freeport.

The family brought out-of-state friends to Pineland on Saturday “to show them what we have here in Maine,” Pigeon said. “We’re pretty excited about farm life.”

At their home they have chickens, and soon will have a big garden.

“We’re excited to get plants in the ground,” Gabe said. “This is part of what we love about Maine, family farms and the ability to come out and see the animals, see where food comes from,” she said. “It’s nice to bring the kids and have them connected to that.”

[email protected]