Farm Rents Their Goats For Zoom Conference Calls For $7/5 mins, Raises $68k

Everything’s better with goats. Don’t believe me? Consider this: they’re cute, some of them have a funny scream, they can jump around in contagious joy, and—ready for this?—you can now get one to join your online meeting for £5, or $6.8 for five whole minutes.

Oh, it may have started as a joke, but I assure you it is no joke. A farm in the UK has recently started offering a “Goat On Zoom” service where a goat from said farm joins in on your zoom call to do goat things.

Zoom meetings can sometimes be fun, but zoom meetings with goats are always fun

Farm Rents Their Goats For Zoom Conference Calls For $7/5 mins, Raises $68k

Image credits: palomitica29

Meet Dot McCarthy of the Cronkshaw Fold Farm in Rossendale, Lancashire, England. Her farm ran into a bit of a financial difficulty come the pandemic—sure, the farming part stayed the same, they continued their work with the farm animals, but things like educational visits and party hosting were out the window.

So, one day, she joked with one of her colleagues about how they should get the goats to join people’s Zoom meetings. It was a completely wacky idea that shouldn’t have been the focus of what they were doing, but they thought they’d put up a website and see what happened.

Turns out, there’s a farm that offers Goats On Zoom services to everyone for £5 ($6.8) for 5 minutes

Farm Rents Their Goats For Zoom Conference Calls For $7/5 mins, Raises $68k

Image credits: SocSciKatie

Dot McCarthy of the Cronkshaw Fold Farm joked about doing this because of the popularity of online calls

Farm Rents Their Goats For Zoom Conference Calls For $7/5 mins, Raises $68k

Image credits: Rebecca00631516

Well, the next day, they were bombarded with a myriad of offers as their email inbox was packed with letters and their phones wouldn’t stop ringing.

One thing led to another and since the launch of this little business venture, the farm managed to earn over £50,000 or over $68,000 just by having their goats join people’s online calls for 5+ minutes at a time.

And this was a godsend, as the farm had some employees that it was thinking of sending off due to the pandemic, but now these same people are too busy hosting online meetings with goats.

So, as a joke, she put up info about it on the website, and the next day it blew up

Farm Rents Their Goats For Zoom Conference Calls For $7/5 mins, Raises $68k

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Ever since its start, the farm has earned over £50,000 ($68,000) just by having goats join online calls

Farm Rents Their Goats For Zoom Conference Calls For $7/5 mins, Raises $68k

Image credits: DWBakes

Speaking of which, the farm offers a selection of 7 goats to meet: Lulu, Ozymandias, Lisa, Elizabeth, Lola, Margaret, and Sabastian. Through the farm’s website, people can book appointments with them for £5 or $6.8 for five minutes over Zoom, Microsoft teams, Skype, Google Hangouts, and other video services.

The website jokes that all of the proceeds go towards bulk-buying toilet paper roll, but in reality, it is actually reinvested back into the farm—purchasing installation of new renewable tech for the farm.

People can book 7 different goats to crash a meeting, like Margaret, Lola and others seen below

Farm Rents Their Goats For Zoom Conference Calls For $7/5 mins, Raises $68k

Image credits: Cronkshaw Fold Farm

Farm Rents Their Goats For Zoom Conference Calls For $7/5 mins, Raises $68k

Image credits: Cronkshaw Fold Farm

Thousands of people loved this idea, with one particular story rising in Dot’s interview with EuroNews where she says that there is one family that books Marge every week—it feels like it has become a part of their family by this point.

Others online called this initiative lovely, inventive, and resourceful, saying that it does definitely spread cheer in an otherwise sad global situation with the pandemic.

Dot even said that there’s a family that books one of the goats weekly—feels like it’s now part of the family

Farm Rents Their Goats For Zoom Conference Calls For $7/5 mins, Raises $68k

Image credits: Cronkshaw Fold Farm

Farm Rents Their Goats For Zoom Conference Calls For $7/5 mins, Raises $68k

Image credits: Cronkshaw Fold Farm

You can learn more and book a goat on the farm’s website. But before you go, tell us your thoughts on this. Will you book a goat for your next online meeting, and if so, which one are you thinking of booking? Let us know in the comment section below!