WHAT if you could get up close to a Highland cow, feed it, brush it and learn all about the breed without needing to travel outside of Tameside?
The Highland Cattle Experience in Carrbrook, Stalybridge offers people the chance to get hands-on with the much-loved, shaggy-haired cattle while learning about farming, animal welfare and the personalities behind the animals.
But the experience started with one very special calf and an unexpected sky high bill.
For Logan Charnock, farming has always been part of family life. Growing up in Stalybridge, hi family kept an allotment and an ever-growing collection of animals, from horses to donkeys, pigs and sheep to guinea pigs, rabbits, budgies and canaries.
When his father bought more land, he decided he wanted to take the next step and buy Highland cattle, but dad Malcolm was not immediately convinced.
So Logan put together a Dragon’s Den-style pitch to persuade his father that his enthusiasm for Highland cows was worth the investment.
Eventually, he won him over and the family began buying cattle.
A newborn calf Astrid was rejected by her mother. The exact reason remains unclear, but without her mother’s milk, she did not receive enough colostrum and became dehydrated. She had to be taken to the vets, where she stayed for around five or six days.
“We had a £550 vet bill, in addition to the milk, the bottles and everything,” Logan recalled. “Within seven days she was £700 to £800.”
Faced with the unexpected cost, Logan and his family began thinking about how they could raise the money. The answer was Astrid.
Charging £5 per person to bottle-feed the calf, four times a day, the response was immediate. “We were fully booked for months,” he remembered.
By the time Astrid was ready to come off milk at around five or six months old, she had effectively paid off the bill that started it all. However, something else had happened along the way – people had fallen in love with her.
Visitors did not just want to bottle-feed Astrid, they wanted to keep coming back and spending time with her.
Logan began researching the possibility of creating a Highland cattle experience earlier back in 2019.. At the time, there were only a handful of similar facilities across the UK, including a couple in Scotland, one in Wales and another in Cornwall.
Covid-19 put plans to launch in 2020 on hold and with the birth of Astrid in 2021, it was the perfect opportunity to bring his vision to life..
Now there is a craze for Highland Cows everywhere, especially on Tiktok.
Logan added: “I always say, ‘If you’re going somewhere hands-on, go somewhere that is a farm that has originally got Highlands that has started to make experiences, as opposed to places who have just bought Highlands to do experiences with.’
“Farmers do a better job of looking after them than people who have just purchased them to exploit them for one purpose only.”
With Highland Cattle Experience LRC, one-hour sessions are deliberately kept intimate, with a maximum of four participants and four cows at a time.
The experience is about much more than the novelty of meeting a Highland cow, animal welfare is at the heart of it.
Visitors can feed, brush and stroke the cattle, take photographs and spend time getting to know the animals hands on with Logan, who delivers a commentary of history, personality and all you need to know throughout every session.
Each slot is £50 per person (aged 10+). Spectators are welcome too, with the first free and additional viewers charged at £5. Groups booking the full experience also receive an additional 30 minutes free of charge.
The cows visitors can currently meet are:
Lilo – one year and two months old
Ember – around one-year-old
Brandy – two-and-a-half-years-old
Tia Maria – two-and-a-half-years-old
And people travel a long way to meet them.
“We’ve had people coming from France, coming from Essex to come and get hands-on with the cows,” Logan told The Correspondent.
“Hearing the back stories makes me want to do it more. It’s the enjoyment and the engagement I get when I meet people.”
The experience has also become a way of introducing younger generations to farming. Logan regularly looks for ways to involve local schools and children, something he feels is increasingly important as fewer young people have the opportunity to experience farming first-hand.
The cattle all have their pedigree names, but they are also given their own, much-loved pet names.
A couple of years ago, pupils at Buckton Vale Primary School were invited to help name one of the cows. Children submitted drawings alongside their suggested names, with the winners of the best name and sketch given the opportunity to meet the cattle.
“It’s about getting that young generation involved in animals,” Logan said.
And in a rather fitting full-circle moment, Astrid – the calf whose unexpected vet bill sparked the whole idea – now lives in the field on Swallow Lane, next to the school, with Ivon the bull and their calf, Celia.
What started with one rejected calf, a bottle of milk and a daunting vet bill has grown into a hands-on experience bringing people closer to farming and to the Highland cows that started it all.
To book a session with Highland Cattle Experience LRC, direct message the page on Facebook at www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100071134563003.