THE festive season boasts plenty of nativity plays, but one Hampshire nursery has cast real animals as the stars of their show.

Farley Nursery School welcomed more than 200 people to the performance of the Grumpy Innkeeper.

Held in the hay barn of the Equine Centre at Sparsholt College, they used miniature donkeys throughout the nativity.

Husband and wife Gary and Sue Palmer set up the nursery in 2005 and loved this years nativity. Mrs Palmer said: “The children were very happy with the whole thing, but for them the best bit was being taken down to the barn on a trailer behind a huge John Deere tractor.”