Latest / Paws Between Us - Pet Stories, Welfare and Building A Bond / Flock & Clowder: Rescuing Cats, Chickens and Building a 4‑Acre Sanctuary

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Flock & Clowder: Rescuing Cats, Chickens and Building a 4‑Acre Sanctuary · Paws Between Us - Pet Stories, Welfare and Building A Bond

• 0:00
  Welcome to the Paws Between Us podcast, co-hosted by best friends Natalie
• 0:04
  and Sasha. We're lifelong animal lovers and proud pet parents.
• 0:07
  Between us, we share our lives with cats Weaver and Murray
• 0:11
  and Betty the pug. In each episode, we'll dive into the joys
• 0:15
  and challenges of living with our furry companions, sharing honest stories,
• 0:19
  laughter, and sometimes a few tears. We'll also bring in special
• 0:22
  guests to offer expert-backed tips and proven practices for keeping your pets
• 0:26
  happy, healthy, and loved. Please note, some episodes may touch on sensitive topics
• 0:30
  or contain strong language. Listener question is advised.
• 0:35
  Hello. Hello. I've got Weaver with me.
• 0:39
  Oh, hello, Weaver. Little sweetie.
• 0:42
  Oh, I've got Betty with me too. She's snoring away. I can
• 0:46
  hear her. Yeah, so, I don't know, see what it's like when you play
• 0:50
  this back, whether you edit it out, but yeah, if you hear a little noise,
• 0:53
  it's Betty snoring away in the Land of Nod. A low
• 0:57
  little grunt. It's very cute. Yes. Oh, she's gone and Weaver's going now. She's leaving
• 1:01
  us to it. Oh, okay. Betty can stay and grunt
• 1:05
  alongside us. Betty didn't get the memo that I'm now recording.
• 1:09
  How are you? How have you been? Yeah, okay.
• 1:13
  Yeah. Recovering from COVID which I think I might've talked
• 1:17
  about in our short pause. Yes. So yeah, I'm COVID-free now,
• 1:20
  so that's good. Hurrah. I'm just adapting
• 1:24
  to that sort of change in seasons. So, I love autumn.
• 1:28
  Love to see the leaves, But I'm not very good with the darker
• 1:33
  nights and the colder nights, in fact. You know, when just
• 1:36
  sort of 6, 7 o'clock, it starts to feel a bit gloomy. Yeah, they're drawing
• 1:40
  in quickly, aren't they? I kind of realised that I might need to think about
• 1:44
  getting out in the daytime because not seeing the daylight,
• 1:48
  it's not going to do me any good. And the doctor said to me,
• 1:50
  I might be low on vitamin D. So, I'm definitely going to have to go
• 1:54
  for little walks in the daytime and then switch my days about. Yeah.
• 1:57
  Yeah. Yeah, do. And take supplements? Do you take vitamin D?
• 2:01
  Yeah, I've just started again actually. I kind of thought it might be a good
• 2:04
  idea. So yeah. Yeah, I'm gonna. Lots of other things as well. I pop a
• 2:08
  whole load of vitamins, which I probably shouldn't do. Rather probably eat better and
• 2:12
  get out more rather than pop pills, vitamin pills. It's easier said than done
• 2:16
  though. Don't beat yourself up that.
• 2:20
  I know, but is it? Yeah, it's a, I should be
• 2:24
  kind of like integrating healthy greens and lentils and vegetables in
• 2:28
  my diet, relying on that Well,
• 2:32
  there's maybe a New Year's resolution there. Leave it to us to sort this out.
• 2:35
  Well, I'm sorting out the cats' dinner and food, so I should sort out my
• 2:38
  food. My health, their health, their health, my health. Yeah. Practise what you preach,
• 2:43
  Nat. Exactly. Me and James had a conversation about this earlier, my husband.
• 2:46
  We were like, if we had kids, we'd probably be eating better because our diets
• 2:50
  would be better 'cause we'd want them to eat healthily. And we're doing
• 2:53
  that to the cats, so we need to do that to us. So yeah.
• 2:56
  Do you still like your cheese? Yeah. So does Weaver, you see. Well, this— You
• 3:00
  were better off You're getting her the same though, aren't you? Oh yeah,
• 3:04
  we are. I had a cheesy omelette last night for dinner, and she
• 3:07
  was barking away while I was cooking it. So I was cutting a little bit
• 3:11
  off for her, a bit of cheese off for her to try. But then she
• 3:14
  just gets a bit obsessed with it. You have to say no eventually. Yeah,
• 3:17
  I give her a few bits and then she wants more, but I get it.
• 3:21
  So yeah, you can't be a bit cheesy. So you're probably good with calcium then.
• 3:25
  Your bones will be nice and strong. Hope so. It's important to watch out for
• 3:28
  as you get older, like we are. Don't write us off yet.
• 3:32
  Oh no. So we've got an exciting
• 3:36
  guest coming up today, a new, a different take, a new person to speak to.
• 3:40
  Should be interesting. This is, uh, someone who we've connected with on Instagram.
• 3:44
  Sash, do you want to tell us more about that? Yeah, we have.
• 3:47
  So we are bringing along today, um, Laura and
• 3:50
  Matt, who are known as Flock and Clowder on social media.
• 3:54
  So some of you may already be following their account. Um,
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  they've recently relocated, lucky them, to a 4-acre
• 4:01
  property in Lancashire, which sounds amazing.
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  And since moving, they've committed their lives to the care of their 7 rescue
• 4:09
  cats, chickens, and the vibrant local wildlife.
• 4:12
  So, we are chatting to them today all about
• 4:16
  this, and their experiences of living on the farm, but also
• 4:20
  to learn more about the care of their animals and their dedication
• 4:24
  to rescue cats and chickens. So,
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  yeah, and I think they've got quite a long history of looking after
• 4:32
  cats and chickens. I think, Didn't Laura
• 4:36
  used to work in a cat rescue centre? Yes, yes. So I say they're committed
• 4:40
  since moving there. You're right, they've been committed for a long,
• 4:43
  long time. I think just moving to the farm has enabled
• 4:47
  them to rescue even more cats. Do more. Yeah, do more. Yeah, fulfil a
• 4:51
  dream. I think, I know they want to sort of develop that into a bigger
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  thing. We met at the Cat Show Live, didn't we? Had a quick chat about
• 4:57
  their sort of aspirations. And so it'd be good to hear more about
• 5:01
  that when they come on and talk to us in a bit. Yeah, definitely.
• 5:04
  I'm in awe. I think I would love to live in the countryside,
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  like with lots of animals. It's kind of a dream of mine.
• 5:10
  Same. Yeah. Same. If I could have a plot of land and have like a
• 5:14
  donkey, a rescue cow, some chickens, oh, it'd be
• 5:18
  my dream to take them all away and let them have a lovely life.
• 5:21
  Oh, I know. Well, just sort of thinking about the
• 5:25
  rescue side of things, I had a quick look online to sort of gauge
• 5:28
  the state of play when it comes to rescue cats and chickens.
• 5:32
  Good one. Yeah. And apparently about 22
• 5:36
  to 25% of cats currently living in the UK
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  have been adopted from shelters or charities. So,
• 5:44
  it's really good to see that people are doing that because
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  there are about, I don't, don't quote me on these stats, but it says there's
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  about 10.6 to 11.7 million cats in
• 5:55
  the UK. And yeah, 22 to 24% of those have
• 6:00
  been adopted. So, you know, that is, yeah, it's not
• 6:03
  bad. It'd be good to get those numbers up even more.
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  But the sad thing is, is that actually, cats that were abandoned
• 6:12
  has risen by over 34% recently,
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  driven, they think, by the cost of living crisis, rising vet
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  bills, and unneutered pets as well.
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  So, yeah. Yeah, that's, that breaks my heart. I hate to think
• 6:29
  about that in reality. It's really upsetting. Well,
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  I know, because approximately 60% of rescue centres are
• 6:37
  operating over capacity. So,
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  they're very stretched. Yes. So, they need your help,
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  not only in rescuing, but also in donating. Yeah,
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  definitely. We need more people like Laura and Matt, don't we?
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  Yeah. Yeah. And I had a quick look at chickens as well because they
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  have, yeah, some wonderful stories to share about
• 7:00
  their chickens, their rescue hens. And yeah,
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  there are a couple of charities out there that are doing sort of rescuing,
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  but there's around 100,000 150,000
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  hens rescued annually each year. And if you
• 7:16
  are looking to do, looking to rescue one, you should check out the British
• 7:20
  Hen Welfare Trust or Fresh Start for Hens. So,
• 7:24
  I know a lot more people seem to be doing this as they,
• 7:28
  yeah, get bigger gardens or bigger houses or bigger
• 7:31
  bits of land, which I think is amazing. Or become more aware of the farming
• 7:36
  industry, which is good. Yes, because sadly,
• 7:40
  on that point, commercial hens are sent to slaughter at just 17
• 7:44
  to 18 months, which is like 72
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  weeks old, which is crazy because it's when their peak egg
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  production begins to slow slightly, making them financially
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  unviable for commercial farms.
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  Even though they can live for 6 to 15 years
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  in a sanctuary or Wow.
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  Someone's garden. Wow.
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  So yeah. It's interesting because I read something,
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  I don't know how true it is, but I've changed what eggs I'm buying now
• 8:16
  based on what I read. And I just think any little nudge in that direction
• 8:19
  is helpful. So that originally I just
• 8:23
  used to buy free-range eggs, but actually free-range can mean a
• 8:27
  whole variety of things, not necessarily maybe what you think.
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  And if you want a slightly better welfare egg,
• 8:35
  you are better going for organic eggs now. Because apparently there's
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  less chicken per square metre.
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  I think something like that goes from, it halves from like 6,000 to
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  3,000 chickens. I'm not quite sure of the size dimensions in relation to
• 8:51
  that, but the numbers halve if you get an organic chicken egg.
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  And also look out for Soil Association stamp and the RSPCA stamp
• 9:00
  on them. So, I'm now not buying just free-range eggs. I'm looking for organic eggs
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  and Soil Association Association and RSPCA
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  stamped eggs if I can. So just a little thing there. You just learn every
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  day. And I just think I'm not going to buy into that. I'm going to
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  try and, if anything, I'd get eggs from like my husband's mother who has
• 9:17
  her own chickens in her garden or someone else I know, but it isn't always
• 9:21
  possible. So, no. And I was about to say that would be the ideal scenario.
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  And as more and more people are adopting chickens or have chickens
• 9:29
  in their garden or on their allotments, then yeah, I'd definitely say seek
• 9:33
  that out. That's One reason why I like going home is my mum's neighbour always
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  has eggs for sale. So, I usually go and stock up when I
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  go home and see her. And they do taste better. So, higher welfare
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  equals better taste. And actually, if you can't, if you're struggling to afford
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  them, you often drive past now, like you say, because more and
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  more people are having chickens in their gardens. I've seen lots of signs recently for
• 9:58
  free-range eggs being sold on the side of a road at someone's house. And they're
• 10:01
  usually a lot cheaper than shop prices. So seek out that if you
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  can and have a lookout for those. Indeed. So yeah,
• 10:08
  so shall we have a chat to Laura and Matt then about, about their wonderful
• 10:12
  rescue endeavours? Can't wait. It'd be really nice. So let's invite them in.
• 10:24
  So in today's podcast, we are talking about caring for rescue pets through the eyes
• 10:28
  of Laura and Matt, also known on socials as Flock and Clowder.
• 10:32
  In 2024, they moved to a 4-acre property in Lancashire and
• 10:36
  quickly started to develop the farm around the needs of their 7
• 10:40
  rescue cats and rescue chickens, along with their bees and the local wildlife.
• 10:44
  So we're super excited to chat to them today about the journey that they've been
• 10:48
  on and learning about their gorgeous fur and feathered family.
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  And if you're currently considering adopting, hopefully they can help you decide
• 10:56
  if it's for you. So hello, Laura and Matt.
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  Welcome. Hi. Hello. Hello. Thank you for having us.
• 11:03
  Yes. Thanks for coming. Yeah, it's good to have you on. Really excited to
• 11:07
  chat. I know you've been busy, so thank you for putting some time aside for
• 11:11
  us. Really appreciate it. Oh, no worries. We've been looking forward to it. Yeah,
• 11:15
  it's always fun to share with, share with people what we're up to and get
• 11:19
  excited about things. Yeah. And you've done some amazing stuff. Yeah,
• 11:23
  you have. So you can tell us more. So I've just introduced you there as,
• 11:26
  um, Flock and Clowder. So, where did the name
• 11:30
  come from? I'm really curious. 'Cause I also know you as Laura and Matt,
• 11:33
  but yeah, what is Flock and Clowder? So,
• 11:37
  it's actually really simple. A few years ago, we wanted to create an Instagram
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  account for our chickens and cats so we could show them off to the world,
• 11:45
  and we decided to use collective nouns. Um, we knew that a group
• 11:49
  of chickens is a flock, but we didn't actually know what a group name
• 11:52
  was for cats. And then A generic off-brand
• 11:56
  search engine to the rescue. And we
• 11:59
  learned that it was a cloud. And we thought,
• 12:03
  oh, that's unusual. I bet that's not taken because finding
• 12:07
  a unique username these days can be quite difficult. And it turned out that
• 12:11
  it was, it was available on everything that we wanted to. And so,
• 12:14
  well, 10 minutes later, we'd registered for everything we could and we went, we will
• 12:17
  snag that for us. And that is what we became. Just that easy. And you
• 12:21
  created the logo? Yes, I had a little bit of fun amalgamating
• 12:26
  cat faces and bird wings into the logo
• 12:30
  that we have on, on the socials, which I'm a little bit proud of.
• 12:33
  I'm allowed to say that, I think. That sounds like a good tattoo idea.
• 12:36
  In fact, I've got a tattoo with a bird, bird feather and my
• 12:40
  cats' faces. Yeah. Amazing. I hadn't thought
• 12:44
  of that. That was a great idea. Yeah. No, no.
• 12:47
  And I never knew Clowder was a group of cats. Obviously, no kittens.
• 12:51
  We didn't. I didn't know that at all. Yeah, I think there's a few of
• 12:54
  them and Clowder was the one that kind of just seemed
• 12:58
  to be kind of unusual and we gravitate towards the unusual.
• 13:01
  So, we thought that would be a good one for us. It's a lovely word
• 13:05
  to say as well. Clowder. Clowder. Yeah. It is. The 2
• 13:08
  words go really well together and it is really striking and very memorable.
• 13:12
  So. Yeah. Well done, you. Not to be mistaken for the soup.
• 13:16
  Yeah. Oh, that happens quite often, actually. Chowder is
• 13:20
  very common. Chowder. One of my, one of my friends always calls us Flock and
• 13:24
  Chowder. Yeah. A very different account.
• 13:28
  Yes. And now you say that, I'm going to be thinking of this all the
• 13:31
  time. I'll be calling you Flock and Chowder. Sorry.
• 13:35
  And how did you both meet? Because you've got a really nice story to share
• 13:39
  around this. Oh, we do. So, we were children.
• 13:43
  We met when we were 8 years old. We didn't actually go to the same
• 13:46
  school at any point. We met at a very unique orchestra that we
• 13:50
  both joined. Yeah. If anyone's interested, it's a balalaika
• 13:54
  Eastern European folk orchestra based in Manchester and in the
• 13:58
  UK. So, yeah. Have a Google.
• 14:01
  Sorry. Still going. Generic off-brand search. Yes. We're still there.
• 14:05
  We still Monday night practices. When we can. And we take
• 14:09
  beginners of all ages. Shameless plug. The organisers will be very
• 14:12
  pleased we said that. It must be awesome if you've been doing it since you
• 14:16
  were 8. Yeah, that is, that is cool. So I'm surprised it's going
• 14:19
  so long. So you must be their sort of, are you their longest serving members?
• 14:24
  No. So the man that started it, he is now in his 80s.
• 14:28
  Wow. So I think he started it in the 80s,
• 14:32
  1984, I think. Yeah, I think that's right. So it's been going
• 14:35
  a long time. Wow. Brilliant. So you met when you
• 14:39
  were 8 in the orchestra and then just things evolved
• 14:43
  from there, I guess. Did you stay in touch and then you got married?
• 14:45
  Yeah, well, we were friends for a long time, kind of from when we met.
• 14:49
  And it wasn't really until actually only a few years
• 14:53
  ago where we found ourselves single at the same time and we promised
• 14:57
  each other that we would be good wing people for each other and get ourselves
• 15:00
  out there and meet nice people. And in doing
• 15:04
  that, we remembered, oh, we are nice people.
• 15:07
  Yeah, it turned out quite compatible. Yeah.
• 15:10
  And actually through the years before we were together, we always
• 15:14
  talked about doing something like this,
• 15:17
  like what we're doing now, but as single people. And then
• 15:20
  obviously we're, we're doing it now and
• 15:24
  bonus, we're together, you know, we're best friends and
• 15:28
  yeah, it's just great. Yeah. It's simplified the whole arrangement too.
• 15:32
  You're living the dream now. Yeah. We are. Yeah. Together.
• 15:37
  So, tell us about your 4 acres in Lancashire then, because I think you said,
• 15:40
  didn't you, you relocated from Manchester. So, what is life like
• 15:44
  now on the farm and how does it compare? We, we like to
• 15:48
  joke that we have never been more happy
• 15:53
  and more stressed at the same time. Yeah.
• 15:57
  I'm not sure it is a joke, but Yeah, but we love
• 16:01
  where we are. The quiet compared to the city is amazing.
• 16:04
  Having nature right on your doorstep. I still haven't quite
• 16:08
  got used to looking out of the window and seeing
• 16:13
  green instead of a row of houses. It's wonderful.
• 16:17
  And seeing lots of animals that you don't normally find in the city.
• 16:20
  So, we have resident pheasants. That was actually the first
• 16:24
  animal we came across that wasn't a a city animal, and we see loads
• 16:29
  of deer, hares. We've got buzzards that hang around.
• 16:32
  We hear oystercatchers sometimes, owls, which obviously you
• 16:36
  do get in the city, but we definitely see a lot more of here.
• 16:39
  And one of my favourites is a heron, which again,
• 16:43
  you do see in the city, but we have this heron that likes to hang
• 16:45
  around our land. Amazing. How long have you been there now then?
• 16:49
  It's not 2 years yet. Not quite 2 years. It's 2 years in December.
• 16:53
  We've had enough of a season to see things grow and expand,
• 16:57
  but it was left kind of unchecked for a few years before we
• 17:01
  moved in. So the last couple of years we've been here has been very
• 17:05
  much trying to battle the relentless tides of nature to
• 17:09
  try and get it back under control to a point where it's manageable.
• 17:12
  And we're making good headway with that. Yeah,
• 17:15
  we are. Yeah. It's a big job, isn't it? Going to be taking care of
• 17:18
  that much land and the animals around you as well. And where
• 17:22
  did your love for the animals
• 17:26
  come from? Like, where did it begin? Have you always had pets around you,
• 17:29
  animals around you? Yeah, for me,
• 17:33
  I've always had a pet. I've never lived anywhere
• 17:37
  without a pet. So, my parents love animals as well. So, before I was even
• 17:40
  born, they got a dog. So, I had no choice really. So,
• 17:44
  I grew up with a dog and then we got a cat later on,
• 17:47
  and that cat then moved with me when I moved out.
• 17:51
  And then obviously we're here now with all these animals. So, just always been around
• 17:54
  animals. Yeah. And I grew up basically
• 17:59
  in a menagerie. We were 2 up, 2 down
• 18:03
  in suburban Manchester and, well, 4 cats, 2 dogs,
• 18:07
  guinea pigs, rabbits, hamsters, fish, and a shark,
• 18:11
  which was always a talking point. Was it a shark? A little redfin
• 18:15
  shark. It was about kind of 2 or 3 inches long.
• 18:19
  Oh, wow.
• 18:22
  They, he, she, I'm not really sure, was called Fergal.
• 18:25
  Fergal Sharky. Amazing. Excellent. Clever.
• 18:28
  Very clever. Got you. They ended up in a tank on their own
• 18:32
  because my parents had a ginormous
• 18:37
  tropical tank with a big shoal of neon tetras and things in it.
• 18:41
  And very excited, oh, we've got this little shark. It'll help
• 18:45
  keep the ecosystem. And then suddenly it looks like there's fewer fish
• 18:49
  in there. Are they dying? And then there was this very
• 18:53
  rotund shark going, oh, time for a snack.
• 18:56
  So yeah, Pergil got relegated to their own
• 19:00
  tank where they could do less damage. Yeah. So you've
• 19:04
  had lots of experience with lots of different types of animals, like same with cats
• 19:08
  and rodents and fish. Has it kind of given you like a bit of an
• 19:12
  insight into like how they're all sort of different and what their different needs are
• 19:15
  and things like that? Yeah, once upon a time, mum and I had to
• 19:19
  perform surgery on a goldfish to remove worms from it, and that was an ordeal.
• 19:24
  Yeah, you had to get it out the tank and into a bucket, into a
• 19:27
  bucket, into a wet towel. Like, you've got 30 seconds-ish to
• 19:32
  do the thing and then back in the bucket. And that was
• 19:36
  a stressful time. They survived though. We were very pleased. We did a
• 19:40
  good job. But I think I That early on,
• 19:45
  all of the animals we had were fed various diets
• 19:49
  of fresh meat, raw food.
• 19:52
  Sometimes they'd have cereal days based on whether they were omnivores or carnivores or whichever,
• 19:56
  except for one of our cats who refused to eat anything except ions for
• 20:01
  her entire life. She almost starved herself. Yeah.
• 20:04
  I mean, obviously wasn't there, but it was really bad. She was a British Shorthair
• 20:08
  as well. Oh, wow. And she was like, nope, I want the junk food.
• 20:11
  Okay. But I think doing that
• 20:14
  early on has kind of instilled the care for
• 20:19
  animals and that you go the extra mile to, to support them as family
• 20:22
  members and, and yeah, do what you can to make
• 20:26
  sure they live a long and happy life. Yeah. And you've
• 20:30
  obviously got like a bit of a menagerie now.
• 20:33
  Talk us through who lives with you now. Who's your fur family now? And feathered
• 20:36
  family and buzzing and others around you.
• 20:48
  Right. Okay. So yeah, I will say we'll go
• 20:52
  through with the briefing, but we've got,
• 20:55
  shameless plug for our Instagram, please go and have a look. We've got some pinned
• 20:58
  things on there with photos and things where people can introduce themselves
• 21:02
  to some of the furry creatures. Feathery creatures we'll
• 21:06
  talk about. I started off with the chickens,
• 21:10
  really. I had an allotment and got 3 chooks
• 21:14
  from someone else who had chickens on the allotment.
• 21:18
  And I got 3 and they turned out to be 2
• 21:21
  girls and a boy. And the girls I still have now. The boy,
• 21:25
  Calcifer, my first rooster, lived with me in suburbia,
• 21:30
  skirting around the bylaws when he started to crow. And then some of
• 21:34
  the neighbors loved him and some of the neighbors weren't so pleased, but he did
• 21:37
  learn that if he crowed at 2 in the morning, I'd bring him in to
• 21:41
  keep him quiet and we'd fall asleep together on the sofa watching TV.
• 21:44
  So, oh, that's adorable. That is adorable. But he
• 21:48
  actually died when he was 1. He had a heart attack.
• 21:52
  And the day he went, one of the hens went broody and
• 21:56
  sat on 8 eggs.
• 22:00
  7 of which turned out to be boys. Fortunately, we found a
• 22:03
  very nice lady who rescues roosters and
• 22:07
  they had peacocks. They've got all sorts. And she took all 7 boys.
• 22:10
  She had enough space to take all 7 of them. And so they are living
• 22:14
  their best life with enough hens to keep them happy. And so from that,
• 22:17
  I kind of got the bug. My chicken empire expanded and
• 22:21
  I started to learn more about kind
• 22:25
  of the commercial industries around chickens and learned
• 22:30
  about the charities that rescue ex-commercial
• 22:34
  hens, like the Ex-Layers. And the more I looked into that, the more I got
• 22:38
  unhappy with paying money for hens and stuff and wanting to
• 22:42
  give these more of a home. And so we started
• 22:46
  to do that. We've got a couple of rounds, I guess, of ex-commercial
• 22:50
  hens because They don't
• 22:54
  live as long. Their bodies are quite harshly treated. And they kind of,
• 22:58
  you know, old age for them is 4 years old and you don't really get
• 23:00
  them until 18 months or 2 years. But health issues aside,
• 23:05
  I think some of them have the best personalities. And once
• 23:09
  they learn to trust you, they kind of give extra
• 23:13
  love because they're so happy to be where they're like getting
• 23:17
  the To witness them experience grass for the first time and things like that is
• 23:21
  just, yeah, it kind
• 23:25
  of hits you on another level, I think. Yeah. We have 9 chickens
• 23:29
  at the moment, don't we? Yeah, 9. We've got a cockerel and 8 hens.
• 23:33
  We lost a couple since we'd moved here because of old age. So they were
• 23:37
  ex-commercial, but yeah, we've got 9 at the moment. And the first 2 I've
• 23:41
  still got from the allotment. They are still with us. And how old are they?
• 23:44
  6 now, nearly 7. Yeah, because they're different breeds,
• 23:48
  so they live longer because they don't lay as much. So their bodies aren't
• 23:51
  as, you know, they don't go through as much. And they come for a
• 23:56
  cuddle every morning. We go out for a coffee and they'll sit on our lap
• 23:58
  and have a cuddle with us. I do like that about chickens because people
• 24:03
  I've started to speak to about their chickens have said how cuddly they are and
• 24:06
  how they do warm to people. They do interact with you. They're not
• 24:10
  just, you know, birds that sort of dust about in the— kick about
• 24:13
  in the dust. They actually do like to kind of hang around humans and make
• 24:17
  a bit of a bond with you. And Laura can stand at the other end
• 24:20
  of like their big enclosure area and shout,
• 24:23
  Treaties! And they'll all come running from
• 24:27
  wherever they are, wings flapping, going, Ah, there's food, there's treats!
• 24:31
  Chicken zoomies is a thing. Chicken zoomies?
• 24:34
  Yeah, it is definitely a thing. That's so cute.
• 24:36
  And you've got rescue cats as well. How many?
• 24:40
  Oh yeah, the cats. Yeah, tell us about them. We have 7 rescue
• 24:44
  cats. We did have 8, but we had to have our cat Gary put to
• 24:48
  sleep earlier this year. You should use his full name. Sorry to hear that.
• 24:52
  Thank you. His full name is actually Gary Barlow.
• 24:56
  We didn't name him that. The charity named him that. The rescue
• 25:00
  that put the, the, he had a feeder and she named him. Okay, will you
• 25:04
  tell the story about Gary and then I'll tell them about the other cats?
• 25:06
  I love that name. I love the name Gary Barlow. That was so cool.
• 25:10
  So, so Gary Barlow had a feeder. He was living in a
• 25:14
  concrete jungle in, in, in an area of Manchester. And they
• 25:18
  think he jumped up on a wall that someone had put glass on. Oh.
• 25:22
  And, and it punctured his paw and he had an infection all the way up
• 25:25
  his, up his front arm. And the lady at the rescue got a
• 25:29
  call, a panicked call. You've got to help Gary Barlow. You've got to help Gary
• 25:32
  Barlow. There's blood everywhere. He's in my lounge.
• 25:38
  Okay. I think there's something in his paw. Oh, he's a
• 25:42
  cat. Great. But so
• 25:46
  Gary got brought into the rescue, and on the same day, 4 other
• 25:50
  stray tomboys. Tomboys? No.
• 25:54
  Tomcats. Tomcats. Toms got brought in. And so,
• 25:58
  because of Gary Barlow, they got the whole of Take That. In, and Jason Orange
• 26:02
  was an orange boy. He was a little ginger boy.
• 26:05
  So have you got Marco in as well? Yeah. Oh,
• 26:08
  he used to wear little bow ties. He was so cute. Marco was the oldest
• 26:14
  cat and he was a sweetie, even though
• 26:17
  he'd been a stray all his life. Well, no, we think he was probably owned
• 26:21
  actually, because everyone loved him at the charity. He was the most cuddly cat.
• 26:24
  He just wanted your attention all the time. He was so sweet. He was adopted.
• 26:28
  But Gary went from an absolute feral monster
• 26:32
  to wanting to be around us so much that he would jump up on the
• 26:37
  bed or the sofa or something. He would flomp down into a sausage shape and
• 26:40
  then use all 4 of his paws to grab your arm and then cuddle it.
• 26:44
  Aw. And then that would be his time. I know that manoeuvre. Yeah.
• 26:47
  So sweet. Yeah. Yeah. What was it that you did then
• 26:50
  to kind of gain that trust? Like what changed?
• 26:54
  But what did he do? I think— it's
• 26:58
  a good question. It was actually while he was still at the charity.
• 27:02
  Right. So it's the one I used to work for, because I can remember him
• 27:05
  coming in and being really feral, but everyone loved him.
• 27:08
  And well, we loved all the cats obviously, but he was this big tomcat
• 27:13
  who was just gorgeous. And, and he has, he had, um— oh,
• 27:17
  he was cross-eyed. He was cross-eyed, yeah.
• 27:21
  So everyone just like fell in love with him straight away and really worked
• 27:25
  on bringing him, him around. So by the time he
• 27:29
  came to us, he, he wasn't as feral.
• 27:32
  Like he was still unsure of some things. He wasn't so great with playing.
• 27:36
  He'd freak out, you know, if you threw a ball towards
• 27:40
  him, he'd really freak out. But yeah, like by the time we adopted him,
• 27:43
  he'd, he wasn't feral anymore. Yeah. 'Cause you fostered him for a little while first.
• 27:47
  Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then it was like, Gary, Gary Barlow's got to,
• 27:51
  Gary Barlow's got to live with us. Yeah.
• 27:54
  So yeah, he's the one we had. Yeah. They're all, I think all
• 27:58
  of them are pretty much. So yeah, Gary Barlow, he was only 8
• 28:02
  when we had to put him to sleep. He had chronic kidney disease, but we
• 28:05
  think it's because of his harsh start in life and the infection from
• 28:10
  his injury wouldn't have done his kidneys any good. And they don't have
• 28:13
  good kidneys to start with anyway, do they, cats? So.
• 28:17
  Yeah, it's sad, but we still have 7, so I'll
• 28:22
  go in chronological order. Please. So, so while
• 28:26
  I was working at the charity, it's, it's called Paupers Halfway
• 28:30
  House, the charity, by the way, if anyone wants to look them up.
• 28:34
  I started fostering 3 siblings that Matt
• 28:38
  ended up adopting, so before we were together, and he called them
• 28:42
  Bagheera, Duchess, and Nala. So Bagheera
• 28:45
  is a black cat. He's very laid back, a little bit derpy.
• 28:49
  He sort of stares at you vacantly quite a
• 28:53
  lot. Uh, Duchess is a tortie who's quite quiet
• 28:57
  and shy, very sweet. Nala is also a tortie, and she's our
• 29:01
  smallest cat. She only weighs around 2.5 kilograms. She's tiny.
• 29:05
  She looks like a kitten. Wow. And she is crazy.
• 29:08
  She runs around the house all the time. She's constantly jumping up as high as
• 29:12
  she possibly can, launching herself off, usually onto somebody.
• 29:15
  So then And then I fostered Lexi and her 3 kittens.
• 29:18
  2 of them got adopted, and I decided to adopt Lexi
• 29:22
  and one of her kittens called Bamboo. Lexi's a semi-long-haired cat.
• 29:26
  She can be a little bit feisty, but she's also very loving, especially when she
• 29:30
  gets used to you. And Bamboo is my little shadow.
• 29:33
  He follows me everywhere. We're very bonded. He always wants to cuddle.
• 29:37
  He makes these little cute high-pitched noises
• 29:42
  when he wants attention or he wants me to play with him or whatever.
• 29:45
  He's very sweet. And he'll slink away from me. Oh yeah. Like if I go
• 29:49
  to give him fusses and stuff, he's like, no, you are not mum. And he'll
• 29:53
  just kind of body swerve and then go and sit next to Laura. Spare human.
• 29:56
  Spare human. Yeah. Um, and then
• 29:59
  after that was when I fostered Gary, and that was around the time that we
• 30:02
  got together. And then we decided to keep Gary. Next was Rufio,
• 30:07
  who is actually called Pudding. He doesn't know his real name, does he?
• 30:10
  Mm-hmm. He's got a little round pudding face. He's really cute. So we call
• 30:14
  him Pudding so much that he now responds to that. So, love it.
• 30:18
  He came from Matt's old neighborhood before he moved in with me.
• 30:22
  Rufio used to come in the house all the time because he wasn't being looked
• 30:25
  after properly by his owners. Yeah, they were actually, they were actually abusing him.
• 30:28
  Oh God. And with the help of the charity, we managed
• 30:32
  to get him out of that situation and then he just ended up staying
• 30:36
  with us. We didn't even have to properly adopt him, did we? No. Because we
• 30:40
  said, oh, we'll keep him in our spare room until you've got room. But you
• 30:43
  know what it's like for charities, they never have room. Yeah. So we ended up
• 30:47
  keeping him and he's doing really well. He is probably our
• 30:51
  most feral cat, even though he did have a home because of how he was
• 30:53
  treated in the first 5, 6 years of his life.
• 30:57
  Yeah. He, he's never really fully got used to humans,
• 31:00
  but he's really improved. When we first got him, you couldn't even touch him without
• 31:04
  being scratched and bitten. Hmm. But now he actually enjoys
• 31:08
  being touched, but he just doesn't want it for very long. So he enjoys a
• 31:12
  few strokes and a few. Scratches every day, but then he's like, okay, no,
• 31:16
  I've had enough now. Hmm. And then we have Snow.
• 31:20
  So he was rescued and then ended up being at the charity for almost 2
• 31:24
  years 'cause nobody wanted to adopt him. And he's a gorgeous cat. I can't understand
• 31:28
  why. He's very affectionate. Anyway, we always had our eye on him, like we want
• 31:32
  to adopt him, but we didn't think it was fair 'cause at the time we
• 31:35
  had 7 cats in a 3-bed house. So we were like, no, it's not really
• 31:38
  fair to bring in another cat into that situation. But we
• 31:42
  had a loose plan that very soon we'd be moving somewhere,
• 31:46
  hopefully with more space. And as soon as we did,
• 31:49
  we just drove back to Manchester in the first few weeks and got
• 31:54
  him. And he's lovely. He's really friendly. He purrs as soon
• 31:57
  as you start stroking him. He's really intelligent as well. I think he's our most
• 32:01
  intelligent cat. So he does this thing where he'll
• 32:05
  stare at you. And then as you approach him,
• 32:09
  he'll suddenly run away, but then he'll look at you from behind and
• 32:14
  wait for you to catch up to him, and then he'll run away again.
• 32:16
  And he keeps doing it until he gets to the room where he's
• 32:20
  leading you. So he wants to play or he wants more food or whatever.
• 32:23
  He's very clever. Very clever. And that's it. That's all our cats, I think.
• 32:27
  Did I forget anyone? Oh, well, well done for adopting all of them and with
• 32:30
  their little foibles and past lives, because I
• 32:34
  know it's not always easy for people to adopt. And obviously, like you say,
• 32:37
  some of them get get sort of disregarded.
• 32:42
  So yeah, I'm glad you were able to kind of bring some of them round.
• 32:45
  And it sounds like they're all like really pretty much loving now and kind
• 32:49
  of, you know, you've definitely developed their personalities and their trust in you,
• 32:52
  which is great. Yeah, they are. Yeah. We feel very lucky
• 32:57
  as well, because it's lovely having them all around. There's always someone that wants a
• 33:01
  cuddle. And do they all get on with each other? Are they all sort of
• 33:03
  happy alongside each other, or do you have a few little spats? There's a couple
• 33:07
  of little factions and a couple of little You know,
• 33:11
  cliques. Yeah, cliques. Yeah. But they're mostly fine with each other.
• 33:14
  Yeah. We have, we have the odd fight. They have the odd fight, I mean,
• 33:17
  but nothing ever serious. So yeah, we count ourselves quite lucky.
• 33:21
  Tris is meowing at us. Okay. I'll bring her up.
• 33:25
  She wants to join in. Yeah. She's, she's just run away now.
• 33:28
  She's the only one that we were worried about with the other cats.
• 33:32
  There's a couple of cats that she really doesn't like. They're not aggressive towards her.
• 33:36
  We think they're just trying to play. Yeah. But she just doesn't see it like
• 33:39
  that. So she has her own room. Which is the room we're in.
• 33:43
  Very much a Duchess. Yes. It has a microchip
• 33:47
  cat flap on the door. It's Matt's office so that during the
• 33:51
  week she has him Monday to Friday, 9 to 5.
• 33:54
  She comes and goes through the cat flap loads, but it
• 33:58
  just means that she's got this room to just get away
• 34:02
  from the 2 cats she doesn't like if she needs to.
• 34:06
  Um, and all the other cats can come and go as well, so. Yeah,
• 34:09
  it's worked out really well for her, hasn't it? And she's got her princess bed
• 34:13
  and her cosy spots and— and her window balcony.
• 34:16
  My computers keep her cosy and warm when they're turned on. So,
• 34:20
  yeah. Lucky little devils. So what
• 34:23
  advice would you give to somebody if they were going to be thinking of rescuing
• 34:28
  a cat? What kind of, kind of tips could you give them once they've,
• 34:31
  you know, got them home and integrating in your household,
• 34:35
  things like that? So I think even before
• 34:39
  you get them home, when you start thinking about adopting a cat,
• 34:44
  research. Just do loads of research. It's the same for
• 34:48
  any animal, obviously, but know what you are getting into.
• 34:52
  I think people, especially with cats, think are super easy and you can just leave
• 34:56
  them to do their own thing. And I mean, in some ways you can,
• 34:58
  but they are more complicated than people think they are.
• 35:02
  So definitely research. Do look at reputable sites. So,
• 35:06
  you know, charities like Cat Protection, RSPCA. SPCA,
• 35:09
  places like that. And through doing that, you'll find advice on the basics,
• 35:12
  like what kind of diet should you be feeding them. Obviously that depends on your
• 35:16
  financial situation as well. How much are they
• 35:19
  gonna sleep? You know, so you don't panic when they sleep for 20 hours the
• 35:23
  first week you've got them. How much are they gonna need to play? How,
• 35:28
  how might they want to play? Just anything like that.
• 35:31
  And then look up advice on how they're gonna behave when
• 35:35
  you first adopt them. Mm-hmm. Because that's a good one.
• 35:38
  Yeah, they're gonna behave differently and obviously
• 35:43
  same for any other animal. So Gary's a really
• 35:47
  good example of that because we weren't the first people to adopt him. He actually
• 35:51
  got adopted by someone else who then returned him, what,
• 35:54
  3 days later? 3 days later. Because all he did was hide under the furniture.
• 35:58
  And so, I mean, that's expected behaviour for an
• 36:02
  animal that's been traumatized, has been put into a new situation. So having the patience
• 36:06
  and And, you know, knowing that that could be
• 36:10
  a thing would've gone a long way to, yeah, helping him settle.
• 36:13
  Yeah. Yeah, definitely. 'Cause it's a new place, it's new people.
• 36:17
  If they've been a stray before they've even got to the charity,
• 36:22
  like they're gonna know nothing about home life. And I think
• 36:25
  also asking the rescue lots of questions when you get
• 36:29
  to that point. So obviously they, they're gonna tell you about the cats that are
• 36:33
  available, but I wouldn't be afraid. To ask more questions, 'cause you
• 36:37
  know your situation better than they do, and there might be things that they
• 36:40
  haven't thought of to tell you. And lastly,
• 36:43
  being honest with the rescue. So what kind of cat
• 36:47
  do you want? Obviously when you're adopting a cat, it is more about them than
• 36:50
  you in some ways, but I've known cats brought back
• 36:55
  for reasons that if the, if the adopter had been honest about
• 36:59
  what they needed, the charity probably would've suggested a different
• 37:03
  cat or maybe even no cat. You know, like people that bring animals
• 37:07
  back and say, oh, they were too cuddly, which is crazy to me. Really?
• 37:12
  Does that happen? Is that, is that a thing? Yeah. Okay.
• 37:15
  Wow. It happens with, I don't know about other animals, but I've
• 37:18
  definitely known it happen with cats. And obviously it's shocking
• 37:21
  to hear that, but then when I, when I reflected
• 37:25
  on that, I thought, well, maybe they're out at work all day and
• 37:29
  because the cat is on their own, when they come home,
• 37:33
  the cat just wants to be so clingy and
• 37:36
  they're trying to like make their tea and get the kids to
• 37:40
  bed or whatever. I don't know. But if they'd just been honest and
• 37:43
  said, look, I'm out at work all day. I need a cat that
• 37:47
  loves human interaction, but is okay without it. Like Rufio, Pudding,
• 37:52
  he'd be perfect for that. 'Cause he'd be like 8 hours, just the house to
• 37:55
  myself. Perfect. So I think that's really important. I think
• 37:59
  people shy away from that because they think if they say things like that,
• 38:02
  they're going to get judged, but it'd be much better for the charity to
• 38:06
  know. Definitely. Yeah. I like that last tip, actually.
• 38:09
  I think if you're on the fence, if you're thinking about
• 38:13
  it, if rescue is a route that you're thinking you might want to do,
• 38:17
  stop thinking about it and just do it. Like,
• 38:20
  as with most things in life, things like that, that are big decisions are kind
• 38:25
  of scary, but rescues are so rewarding
• 38:30
  for, you know, a little bit of extra work of learning,
• 38:35
  you know, their behaviors and their personalities and stuff. And they,
• 38:40
  they are so, I don't know,
• 38:43
  grateful, I guess, when they are in a family that loves them.
• 38:47
  We need more people out there rescuing. So yeah. What would you say to
• 38:52
  people who are drawn towards finding a cat that looks
• 38:56
  pretty? Well, you know, I want this colour one, I want that type of
• 39:00
  breed. You know, when they're talking, when they're thinking about going to rescue, like,
• 39:03
  is there anything you could say to somebody who's thinking about
• 39:06
  it and haven't gone yet? I think in some ways that's fine because,
• 39:10
  I mean, I know working in rescue, that can be really frustrating, obviously,
• 39:14
  because you're like, oh, but here's 50 cats that aren't like that, but really need
• 39:18
  a home. But I think again, that goes back to
• 39:22
  being honest and saying what you want, because just
• 39:26
  thinking about the charity I worked for, it was only a small local
• 39:30
  charity, but we always had a,
• 39:34
  like a long-haired gorgeous cat up for adoption. And you
• 39:38
  know, the ones that people gravitate more towards,
• 39:41
  we always had cats like that that needed homes. We probably could have found a
• 39:45
  cat that they wanted. We could have found a match. Yeah, I also think that
• 39:49
  people don't necessarily
• 39:53
  have a correlation in their brains of what they want versus what they need or
• 39:57
  what is good for them. And so I think my advice would be to not,
• 40:01
  it's contradictory to what I've just said about just do it,
• 40:04
  but go and spend some time with the animals. If you're thinking about adopting
• 40:09
  or rescuing, don't just go in and window
• 40:13
  shop and say, I'll have that one, but get in there and interact with them
• 40:17
  and spend some time with them. Go back a few times and see if you
• 40:19
  can build a Because, you know, ever since I was little,
• 40:22
  I always wanted greyhounds. And now I
• 40:26
  have 7 cats and chickens and all the things that a greyhound
• 40:29
  would be trained to chase. And that's not to say I don't still love them
• 40:33
  and I don't, I wouldn't still want one, but I absolutely would not change
• 40:37
  the rescue journey I've had and the family that we've built up for the world.
• 40:41
  And so spending time and being with them, you might find
• 40:45
  that the perfect partner is actually there. It just isn't quite like what
• 40:49
  you expected. Yeah. Yeah. And I've just remembered that we did sometimes have people coming
• 40:53
  in saying, um, 'cause we, we've got,
• 40:57
  we had forms that you could fill in, adoption forms, and you can say,
• 41:01
  you know, what kind of cat are you looking for? And they'd put, they might
• 41:05
  put a certain colour, um, which to me obviously is kind of strange,
• 41:09
  but that's fair enough. Everyone's different. And then they'd
• 41:12
  come and they might want a ginger cat,
• 41:15
  but there might be this cat that has cuddled them
• 41:18
  for an hour and they're now really attached to that cat. And it, you know,
• 41:22
  it could be a grey cat or a white cat or whatever, and they always
• 41:24
  end up going for that cat. It doesn't matter anymore. Like what they
• 41:28
  wanted before they came has gone out the window completely. And I guess that's why
• 41:32
  it's really important that you have that opportunity to come in and try and bond
• 41:35
  with different cats, right? So it's good that charities offer
• 41:39
  that. Yeah. Bit of time and space. Although I will admit spending time
• 41:43
  with the chicken, the rescued chickens beforehand is less of a thing. When we
• 41:47
  actually rescue chickens, the experience was very, it was an
• 41:51
  exercise in efficiency. 'Cause I think they had like 13,000 hens to rehome.
• 41:55
  And you were on a list and you said, I'm gonna be taking X many
• 41:58
  home. And you turn up on the day and they literally, they, you know,
• 42:01
  they've all been health checked and vaccinated, but they turn around and they,
• 42:05
  you've got 3, I'll pick 3 up out in your carrier. Off you go.
• 42:09
  Thank you very much. It's like, all right, these are our 3. Oh,
• 42:13
  it's like a product. Wow. And then they're completely bald.
• 42:16
  They've got no feathers. They're little skinny mini things. And then when
• 42:21
  you take them home, you get to learn that
• 42:25
  the product has a personality and let them
• 42:28
  come out of their shell and stuff. And so that is exciting. It's like a
• 42:31
  Kinder Surprise, isn't it? You never know what's going to be inside. And you,
• 42:34
  in some ways, you get to piece them back together as well.
• 42:37
  Analogy for the day.
• 42:48
  And just on that, in terms of caring for your
• 42:51
  pets, I mean, it's wonderful that you found each other.
• 42:55
  They're really lucky to sort of be part of your life. Like, how have they
• 42:59
  shaped your life on the farm? What have you been sort of doing on
• 43:03
  the farm or designed the farm with your rescue babies
• 43:08
  in mind? Every single thing. I think
• 43:11
  that we do is based around the animals. Yay. Either to
• 43:16
  make their lives better or to help improve
• 43:19
  the efficiency for us in taking care of them.
• 43:23
  So it might be
• 43:27
  that we are literally doing
• 43:31
  the chores and we're going around and feeding them and we're making sure everyone is
• 43:33
  healthy and happy and got water, but I get to blend some of my
• 43:37
  day job into some of the efficiencies. Like we've got microchip cat feeders
• 43:42
  and they're hooked up to automations and we've got sensors
• 43:46
  in the chickens to tell us when the water barrel's getting low and that's hooked
• 43:50
  up to filters and collects the rainwater. And so there's all these little things
• 43:53
  where we can try and build out a system and
• 43:58
  we can only really do that because of the space and the abundance
• 44:01
  of resources that we have. Around us. And then planning areas
• 44:05
  for the animals and the things that will grow for them and things so that
• 44:08
  maybe the food bills are reduced for them as well. So the chickens are going
• 44:12
  to have their own little salad bars where it's a
• 44:15
  raised bed with mesh over the top of it and stuff will grow up through
• 44:18
  that. And when they're free-ranging, it'll be, look, a snack, but they can never dig
• 44:23
  it up enough to ruin it and take it back to earth. Little things
• 44:26
  like that. Yeah. And I would say, Yeah, like obviously it's
• 44:31
  the same for me. My whole routine is around the animals, down to where I
• 44:35
  have my breaks throughout the day. So I'll
• 44:39
  go, I'll use different rooms for my different breaks because,
• 44:43
  you know, certain cats like to hang out in this room and other ones like
• 44:47
  to hang out in this other room. And I want to make sure they've all
• 44:49
  got a chance to spend some time with me. So even
• 44:54
  that. It's around the animals. And I think also
• 44:57
  we, I mean, we've bitten off more than we can chew in some ways because
• 45:00
  we've just started, you know, we've not been here 2 years and we've got 2
• 45:04
  big projects kind of going on side by side and they're both
• 45:08
  for the animals. So we've, we want to create this
• 45:11
  huge aviary for the chickens so they've got more space and so we can adopt
• 45:16
  more. So the goal for that is, I don't know if everyone
• 45:19
  is aware, but avian flu is a big thing.
• 45:22
  It is recurring each year. And when,
• 45:26
  when the alert comes through from the government that we are now back in flock
• 45:29
  down, the chickens have to be undercover
• 45:34
  and they're not allowed out. And there's like strict guidelines about what shelters
• 45:37
  and stuff they had. So the goal for the aviary is to have a big
• 45:41
  enough open space that is compliant with those laws
• 45:44
  so that they can still free range and get on the grass and, you know,
• 45:47
  have that open space and time without us having to worry about
• 45:51
  the risks available to them. And it'll be predator-proof.
• 45:54
  How many birds would fit in it when you've eventually, or how many are
• 45:58
  you hoping to get maybe eventually? We're probably going to have
• 46:02
  a rolling flock of no more than 20. Okay. And we think that's probably
• 46:06
  enough for us to look after them properly. Yeah.
• 46:10
  Balanced with all of the other stuff that we've got going on. And we'll
• 46:15
  see if they're not freeloaders because they're
• 46:19
  chipping into the whole property because they,
• 46:24
  spoiler alert, chickens poop a lot and chicken
• 46:29
  poop is a fantastic fertilizer. So all of their bedding then goes off into other
• 46:32
  parts of the property and will be used in the raised beds and stuff to
• 46:35
  grow and feed us, which will then in turn feed them. And yeah.
• 46:39
  And they provide eggs. Eggs. Oh, and eggs. That's— I thought that's why you were
• 46:43
  going first. That's the most obvious thing. That would have been the first thing
• 46:47
  I would have thought of. Yeah, yeah. Although we don't eat a lot of them
• 46:50
  actually. God, you'll be inundated with eggs. I guess, would you sell them on into
• 46:54
  like the local community or something? Because you won't be able to eat them all
• 46:56
  yourselves. Yeah, we do that to friends and family as well because I—
• 47:01
  we just like the idea that people can buy them off us and at least
• 47:04
  they know the chickens have looked after properly. Yeah. Oh,
• 47:08
  I love that. I love a proper, proper egg, a wholesome
• 47:11
  egg. And they do taste different. I have, my neighbour has
• 47:15
  chickens and I have the eggs from him and they're amazing.
• 47:18
  And yeah, knowing that there's a high welfare standard there.
• 47:22
  And I just want to say, we haven't forgotten about the bees.
• 47:25
  We're not going to cover the bees tonight because we know that
• 47:29
  there's so much you could say about the bees and the hives. So we're
• 47:33
  going to invite you back on in time to come to talk about the bees.
• 47:36
  But I just wanted to give a shout out to the bees because I know
• 47:39
  that you've been doing a lot as well, and I'm sure you're getting lots of
• 47:42
  honey from the bees. So yeah, tell the girls you said hi.
• 47:45
  Yeah, please do come back, but pass on our love to
• 47:49
  the bees. We will. We will. So in terms of just wrapping up,
• 47:53
  um, you know, thinking about your love for animals, what is
• 47:56
  the one thing that we can all do to make the world a better,
• 48:00
  kinder place for animals and our pets?
• 48:04
  I'm going to say something that sounds very simple, but applies
• 48:08
  not just to animals, but kind of a general thing in
• 48:12
  life, which is to call out unkindness because we're
• 48:16
  not great. Most of us, myself included,
• 48:19
  not great at confrontation, not great at standing up and saying,
• 48:23
  hey, that wasn't great. You might want to check your behavior
• 48:26
  there. And so And what's
• 48:30
  the quote? I'm sure I'll butcher this.
• 48:33
  Was it evil prospers when good people do nothing? I think it's really,
• 48:37
  really important that we have more of an awareness around
• 48:42
  the feelings and the emotional state of the creatures that
• 48:46
  are in our care and that are in our care adjacent. Yeah.
• 48:50
  Yeah. Thank you. Because I know you must have seen some things in the rescue
• 48:54
  world that you've been involved You know, where there has been cruelty. Laura has stories.
• 48:58
  Yeah. Yes. Yeah. I have terrible stories.
• 49:01
  But I think, can we have a second one? Of course.
• 49:05
  So I was going to say, obviously I agree with Matt,
• 49:09
  but I also think that something that we can all
• 49:12
  do right now to help a huge number of animals
• 49:16
  is to start thinking about how we can reduce the amount of animal products
• 49:20
  we're consuming. So it doesn't mean we all have to go vegan.
• 49:24
  If you can, then that's fantastic, obviously. But at the very least,
• 49:27
  I think we need to start thinking, oh, how can I tweak my
• 49:31
  diet here and there so that overall as a country,
• 49:35
  as a world, we're definitely consuming less animal products?
• 49:40
  And I think there's 3 reasons why I
• 49:43
  think that would help animals, a lot of animals.
• 49:47
  And the most obvious one obviously is if we're consuming fewer animal products, it means
• 49:51
  fewer animals are slaughtered. At the moment worldwide, there's 92
• 49:56
  billion animals slaughtered every year. Which,
• 50:00
  by the way, is more than 11 times the total population of
• 50:04
  the Earth right now. Yeah. And it doesn't include fish. That's land
• 50:08
  farm animals. Fish are in the trillions. I can't even comprehend that number,
• 50:12
  to be honest. And then second reason is to do with intense
• 50:15
  factory farming, where the conditions for the animals are really awful.
• 50:20
  I'm not gonna go into detail, obviously, but if anyone does want to know more,
• 50:24
  I'd recommend an organization called Project Slingshot
• 50:28
  UK. They're on Instagram. I think they're on other social media sites as well,
• 50:31
  but definitely Instagram. And they're doing an amazing job
• 50:35
  of highlighting a lot of the problems with factory farming.
• 50:39
  In the UK, it's about 85% of farm animals
• 50:43
  that are in factory farms and 15% your
• 50:46
  small local farmers that are actually doing it right. So they're the ones
• 50:50
  that you see out and about if you're in the countryside.
• 50:53
  And so it's really sad that they're in the minority. So if we
• 50:56
  all reduce the amount of animal products we're consuming, farming practices should
• 51:01
  improve on these farms. Like maybe they'll be more like the local farmers
• 51:04
  because there's less pressure on all the farmers. And then finally,
• 51:08
  I think it would help wild animals as well.
• 51:12
  Our farm animals at the moment take up
• 51:16
  up a lot of resources. And obviously that does include the land to keep them
• 51:19
  on, but also the land that is needed to grow the food to
• 51:23
  feed them that, you know, we then eat. We then eat the animals,
• 51:28
  which is directly harming wild animals. So again,
• 51:32
  reducing the consumption of animal products would mean we aren't using as
• 51:36
  much land. And then in turn, that would hopefully help biodiversity and
• 51:40
  ensure wild animals have more space. And I think it can be so simple.
• 51:43
  It doesn't need to be complicated. Like I said, you don't have to go vegan.
• 51:46
  You could just try out things. You might discover,
• 51:50
  well, I quite like oat milk in my coffee, but I can't
• 51:54
  stand it in my tea. You know, that's fine. Drink oat milk in your coffee
• 51:57
  and have cow's milk in your tea. At least you're doing something.
• 52:00
  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think as much as you
• 52:03
  love your chickens, your rescue chickens, it would be good to see less
• 52:08
  of them available for rescue, right? Because that means that they haven't been used for
• 52:11
  farming. Yeah. Or for factory farming
• 52:15
  for food. I go, yeah. Yeah. If they turned around
• 52:19
  and said, oh, I'm so sorry, you can't rescue chickens anymore because there are none
• 52:21
  left that need it. It would be like, oh, yay. There aren't millions
• 52:25
  of chickens in that horrendous situation anymore. Bless them. Well, then we'd
• 52:29
  probably actually hatch chickens and we'd enjoy having chicks. And, you know,
• 52:33
  if there wasn't that problem there, we'd have,
• 52:36
  there's so many different breeds and they're so beautiful.
• 52:40
  At some point as well, we have dreams of having a bachelor
• 52:44
  flock because you can rescue all the boys. And if you've got no hens,
• 52:47
  the boys will form their own little colony together. And they're
• 52:50
  the boys, they're all super pretty and they've all got their own personalities and they're
• 52:54
  noisy little blighters, but you've got to love them and just watch it.
• 52:57
  Yeah, it'd be so cool. Again, we can't go into it, but there's, I know
• 53:01
  we talked about it when we met, didn't we? There's a bit of a dark
• 53:04
  story to male chickens, roosters. So if anybody
• 53:09
  wants to know about more, maybe go and have a look on the internet if
• 53:12
  you want to understand. Is there anything on that website you mentioned, Laura,
• 53:15
  about that side of things? Yeah, I was going to say,
• 53:19
  they, I think what they seem to do, I don't see everything that they
• 53:22
  do, obviously, but they focus on different animals. I think they started with pigs,
• 53:26
  pig farming, and now they've got a big focus on chickens and they do talk
• 53:30
  about the thing that you're talking about. Yeah. Thank you.
• 53:34
  Well, thank you so much. I mean, we're definitely following your journey. And,
• 53:38
  you know, we're real advocates for what you're doing. It's amazing that you
• 53:41
  are rescuing so many wonderful animals,
• 53:45
  and we hope to come up and visit at some point and see them for
• 53:48
  ourselves and have a cuddle and have a stroke. And yeah,
• 53:51
  just thank you. Uh, thank you for all you're doing.
• 53:55
  Thank you for what you're doing, because, you know,
• 53:58
  you're having all these different people on, and it's just great that
• 54:02
  more people are learning new things through
• 54:06
  what you are doing. Yeah. Having the conversations
• 54:09
  is really good. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's right.
• 54:12
  I think, I don't know if we're kind of like in a bit of a
• 54:15
  closed group, but I definitely feel like people are starting to become more aware of
• 54:18
  what we are doing and our impact on animals. And so I hope as
• 54:22
  we carry on doing this, we'll see many more practical
• 54:26
  changes and real changes for the way that, the way we, we look after our
• 54:30
  animals. So yeah, let's hope So yeah, definitely. Thank you,
• 54:33
  guys. Yeah, thank you. Thanks for coming with it all.
• 54:36
  Yeah, take care. We'll see you soon. Take care.
• 54:40
  See you soon.