Morag, an imposing Highland cow with a caramel coat, ambles out of the main shed at Dumble Farm in northern England and stands ready to meet her guests. Visitors have traveled from far and wide to the farm near Beverley in east Yorkshire, not to buy milk, yoghurt or cheese, but to enjoy a cuddle with Morag and her companions.
Fiona Wilson and her cofarmers at Dumble Farm started offering the cuddling sessions in February when it became obvious that economic difficulties of modern dairy farming had become untenable.
“Some people like to engage with dogs or cats or horses and other people find that cows are the animals they want to be with,” Wilson said.
Photo: AFP
“People are coming for a wellbeing point of view. That anxiety relievingness of being with animals is almost like a therapy,” she said.
Dumble Farm’s owners looked to diversify because a sharp fall in the price of milk and high inflation were crippling their dairy farming business.
Economic hardship has forced farmers to leave the industry in their droves for decades.
According to a British House of Commons Library research brief, the UK had 196,000 dairy farms in 1950. By 1995, there were just 35,700.
Lower milk prices and rising energy, fuel, feed and fertilizer costs since the outbreak of war in Ukraine 20 months ago has been a nail in the coffin for many more.
In its latest survey of major milk buyers, the British Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board, which represents farmers, estimated that as of October, there were 7,500 dairy producers in Britain.
For Dumble Farm, flooding in six out of the past seven years was an added challenge, leaving the farm under water often for months at a time.
Wilson said she and her partners at the farm, who include her husband and brother, were working 14 hours every day of the year and losing money.
“It’s impossible to live like that,” she said. “There was just no future. We were just getting nowhere.”
In January last year, the farmers decided to diversify and sold off their dairy herd other than five cows that they could not bring themselves to leave.
“They were our friends really, with placid friendly natures,” Wilson said.
“We thought maybe that we could try having a go at cow cuddling, just to earn a bit of extra money on top of our conservation scheme and also to engage people with what we were doing here,” she said.
The farm prepared the cows for months before inviting customers to come and cuddle them — and the cows appeared happy to oblige.
“They are inquisitive animals. They are interested when people come down to see them,” Wilson said.
The experience, which also includes educational activities on conservation and sustainable farming, draws couples, families and cow lovers from across the country. The US$63 per person tickets sell out months in advance. Inside the barn, dozing cows delight in having their chins scratched and their soft coats brushed by the paying visitors.
Steven Clews said he bought the experience for his wife, who loves Highland cattle.
“I’m fond of all animals, especially cuddly ones, so being able to cuddle a big one is really cool,” he said.
“They are so easy to brush,” said his wife, Emma Clews. “I didn’t think I would find it relaxing, but they are just so cuddly. It’s very therapeutic.”
When the sessions end, the visitors are herded outside the cowshed and into the sun where Morag awaits.
Morag raises her head to the sky as visitors brush and caress her soft furry chest, drawing smiles and hums of delight from her human companions.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) greetings with what appeared to be restrained rhetoric that comes as Pyongyang moves closer to Russia and depends less on its long-time Asian ally. Kim wished “the Chinese people greater success in building a modern socialist country,” in a reply message to Xi for his congratulations on North Korea’s birthday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported yesterday. The 190-word dispatch had little of the florid language that had been a staple of their correspondence, which has declined significantly this year, an analysis by Seoul-based specialist service NK Pro showed. It said
On an island of windswept tundra in the Bering Sea, hundreds of miles from mainland Alaska, a resident sitting outside their home saw — well, did they see it? They were pretty sure they saw it — a rat. The purported sighting would not have gotten attention in many places around the world, but it caused a stir on Saint Paul Island, which is part of the Pribilof Islands, a birding haven sometimes called the “Galapagos of the north” for its diversity of life. That is because rats that stow away on vessels can quickly populate and overrun remote islands, devastating bird
‘CLOSER TO THE END’: The Ukrainian leader said in an interview that only from a ‘strong position’ can Ukraine push Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘to stop the war’ Decisive actions by the US now could hasten the end of the Russian war against Ukraine next year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday after telling ABC News that his nation was “closer to the end of the war.” “Now, at the end of the year, we have a real opportunity to strengthen cooperation between Ukraine and the United States,” Zelenskiy said in a post on Telegram after meeting with a bipartisan delegation from the US Congress. “Decisive action now could hasten the just end of Russian aggression against Ukraine next year,” he wrote. Zelenskiy is in the US for the UN
A 64-year-old US woman took her own life inside a controversial suicide capsule at a Swiss woodland retreat, with Swiss police on Tuesday saying several people had been arrested. The space-age looking Sarco capsule, which fills with nitrogen and causes death by hypoxia, was used on Monday outside a village near the German border. The portable human-sized pod, self-operated by a button inside, has raised a host of legal and ethical questions in Switzerland. Active euthanasia is banned in the country, but assisted dying has been legal for decades. On the same day it was used, Swiss Department of Home