A struggling dairy farm in Yorkshire in the north of England has been overwhelmed with bookings after offering a cow cuddling experience. The farm made the decision to diversify and expand to cow cuddling and conservation after struggling to make a profit out of dairy farming. A fall in the price of milk, inflation and flooding made it difficult for the farm to return a profit.
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00:00 I've only been around to look into something.
00:02 Can I eat them?
00:04 OK.
00:05 Oh my gosh.
00:10 We've got more.
00:12 I think half.
00:13 Two year old.
00:14 Thank you.
00:15 Oh, I thought more of this.
00:16 Do you want to go?
00:18 Do you want to go together now?
00:19 Yeah, go on.
00:20 It's just really nice.
00:27 I'm fond of all animals, especially cuddly ones.
00:30 So, yeah, being able to cuddle a big fluffy animal is really cool.
00:53 And we'd got to the stage where the land was just under water, sometimes for months at a time,
00:58 killing all the type of grasses that we needed for the dairy cows.
01:02 So we needed to move into something different really.
01:05 We were struggling, struggled for quite a few years and decided there was just no future.
01:10 We were just getting nowhere.
01:11 We were just losing money and we needed to make some changes.
01:15 You're just pulling me out of the field.
01:16 It wasn't long.
01:17 We had these five that we couldn't bear to part with.
01:32 They were our friends, almost like pets really, these five cows.
01:35 All really placid, friendly natures.
01:38 We thought maybe we could try having a go at cow culling as a diversification really,
01:44 just to earn a bit of extra money on top of our conservation scheme.
02:06 Quite relaxing, but obviously just like watchful because they're animals, they're unpredictable.
02:12 But no, it's definitely an experience I'd recommend for people to do.
02:17 They love it.
02:29 They're quite inquisitive animals.
02:31 They like stuff going on.
02:33 They're quite interested in when people come down to see them.
02:36 It took them a while to get used to it.
02:39 We did practice for months before we started doing it.
02:42 So they get nice full stomachs and they're laid down cuddling, all nice and quiet.
02:47 And that's the best time to cuddle them, rather than when they're stood up and walking around.
02:51 [BLANK_AUDIO]