The Morning of a Farm Volunteer.

By Katherine Morten

4 days a week Viv gets up and goes to her local farm in Chelmsford, Essex. A very early morning start of 5am so she can fit the volunteering around her normal job. She arrives and they first thing is to get the mucky jobs out of the way.

“Literally I do get the mucky jobs out the way first, I make my way over to our lovely horses and muck out anything presents they have left me overnight, whilst they go for a lovely walk and some breakfast.”

From an early age she has always had a love for animals and wanted to right the wrongs of how animals are treated. She said it is important that the animals are treated with love, care and respect.

“You see horrible stories of how people abuse these beautiful creatures and I just can’t imagine what type of person you would have to be to do that. With the terrible things going on in society today, animals are kinder than people.”

Once she has bonded with the horses, she moves on the chickens, where she collects her eggs for the morning. The farm owner uses the eggs themselves and gives them to any volunteers.

“It is a benefit of volunteering the eggs are lovely, I don’t think we would ever buy eggs again, unless we knew exactly where they came from and how they were treated.”

After collecting the eggs she goes about the other cleaning duties and getting the animals settled. The farm is open for visits allowing young children to see what it is like working on a farm. She believes it is good to get children interested at a young age, teaching them how to treat animals with respect, telling them right from young.

She said: "If you nurture the animals and treat them as equals with respect, then you are setting a good example for future generations, which in turn will hopefully eliminate animal cruelty." 

Farms have always been a go to visit with primary schools around the country, send us a story about your favourite memory at a farm to be featured in our next article like Viv.