An entrepreneurial farmer is hiring out her herd of goats to liven up online meetings.
Dot McCarthy says she can provide the ultimate scapegoat for anyone who has decided they can’t face another virtual meet up on Zoom.
And the idea has proved so popular that Dot, who runs Cronkshaw Fold Farm in Helmshore, Rossendale, has had requests from across the globe.
“It’s insanity,” she says. “We’ve had interest from Australia, New Zealand and Canada.
“Last night we were part of a Eurovision quiz in Berlin. They loved it and kept asking the goat questions.”
For the princely sum of £5, customers can hire one of six goats to join their calls and add some excitement to dull meetings.
Customers can choose from ‘sassy’ Simone, heavily pregnant Lisa, Mary with a ‘limited attention span’, or the impeccably mannered Elizabeth.
Alternatively they could choose ‘opinionated’ Bret or velvety-eared Terrance, who has ‘a deep interest in what you have to say’.
A blurb on the farm’s website reads: “Coronavirus. The only logical reaction - hire a goat for all your important business video calls.
“Be real - will anyone even notice if a scape-goat joins the call?”
Dot hopes the novel idea will give people a laugh and help those who are stuck inside during lockdown.
She says: “I had a random idea because I know people like goats and they’re naturally curious animals so they will stare at the camera and skip about.
“I feel so lucky that I live on a farm at the moment and I get to be outside and interact with the animals. I know so many people are missing that.”
Goats On Zoom only started two days ago but Dot has already had interest from a wide variety of people.
“The call I was just on was grandparents who booked the goat as a surprise for their grandaughter - she loved it,” she says.
“We’ve had some really big businesses booking goats just to cheer their staff up. In some of the calls the staff will be on the call for five minutes before they notice a goat is there. It’s really funny.
She adds: “On the call last night it was just before the clap for the NHS here.
“You can see my village from the top of the hill so I took the screen down so they could look at the village and the countryside and could hear the audio of the clapping.”
Farmer Dot, 30, is no stranger to diversification having previously set up treehouse and yurt accommodation at the sheep and goat farm.
She was the star of a BBC documentary last year which followed her as she worked to run the farm, the holiday business, host a wedding, add a hot tub and launch goat yoga.
Dot has been raising money to install renewable power technology, including a wind turbine, at the farm. She had planned a number of fundraising events for the summer but they have all now been cancelled.
The goat zoom calls are one of a number of inventive ideas Dot has come up with to keep the farm going through the tough lockdown period with the help of her teenage apprentice and ‘admin queen’ Emma.
“They’ve been so good and I’m so proud of them,” Dot says.
The farmer has also been selling hay for pets, manure and growing fruit and veg to keep the business up and running.
“I’m trying to make sure my business survives through this time. We’re trying to do the best we can,” Dot says.
“We usually do educational visits so I did some Facebook live videos of the farm and one was shared by one of the bosses at Facebook.
“We’re also growing food in the barn to supply some healthy fruit and veg to the local community and I’ve started selling manure because I was inspired by the Dig For Victory campaign and I wanted people to start growing in their own gardens.
“But we had so many orders on the first day so I ended up shovelling about two and a half tonnes.”
The goats are available for calls in Zoom, Skype and Google Hangouts at most times of the day.
Dot says they are “fully bilingual” and “love a good evening shindig” as well as family nights, birthday messages and pub quizzes.
To book a goat visit cronkshawfoldfarm.co.uk
