A text alert system to warn farmers about livestock in danger has been developed.

Farmer Tim Rogers set up the Livestock Lookout system on the Isle of Wight after cattle escaped on his land.

The technology, being offered to farms across the UK, lets passers-by warn farmers if livestock is the loose or distressed.

Mr Rogers said it was an “effective early warning system” for the rural community.

He came up with the idea after cows escaped from a field on his land, knocked someone over and damaged a car.

He said he only found out when concerned passers-by posted about it on social media but had no way of informing him.

Putting up a sign with his mobile number only encouraged nuisance calls, he added.

Instead, he used intelligent technology to allow farmers to be contacted quickly but anonymously.

Farmers display a sign with a central text number and a unique location number.

The farmer then receives an text, via a central exchange directory, to alert them to any incidents, while the system gathers more information from the informant

A farm in Lancashire has added a new source of income by allowing the public to book a goat to join in on their lockdown video calls.

Since taking over Cronkshaw Fold Farm from her mother in 2016, Dot McCarthy has diversified the farm into a sustainable business, including educational trips, weddings and accommodation.

But when lockdown made many of these income streams impossible, she adapted her business model from bricks and mortar to ‘bricks and clicks’ – a term for businesses that combine in-person and online services.

“We started virtual activity videos with our local community,” said Dot. One activity involved communicating through mirrors and flashes of sunlight to spell out letters of the alphabet.

“We taught local kids to mirror signal the word PIES – we love pies in Lancashire – and as we’re up on a hill overlooking the valley, we were able to watch all their mirror signals from people’s houses.

Cronkshaw Fold Farm also received unexpected publicity from Dot’s second digital offering: charging £5 to book a goat to join a Zoom call.

“This started as a joke,” she said. “I came up with the idea, told my employee Emma and we agreed it was completely wacky and we should prioritise other money making ideas.

“I put it on the website that evening anyway along with Emma’s email address for bookings. When I woke up, I had loads of missed calls from Emma saying she’d been inundated with emails and couldn’t keep up with the demand for goat calls.”

The success of Dot’s venture has led to newspaper articles, podcast features and an interview on ITV’s This Morning.

“We’ve had everyone from the European management team of Facebook, to NHS staff in need of a cheer up, to virtual church services – the vicars always seem to choose Mary the goat and I am pleased to say we have made over 50k so far,” she said.

When Dot wasn’t busy doing Facebook lives and Goat Zoom calls, she was hard at work bagging up manure to sell to local people growing their own fruit and vegetables.

“We made more than £1000 in just a few delivery runs and our part-time farm school teacher picked up lost work hours doing manure admin instead.”