Mucking in at Foal Farm

Columnist Zahra Barri volunteers at a farm animal rescue to see whether charity can really begin at home, or at least in Kent.

Editor’s note: It’s quite easy to look at the big issues of the world and feel a sense of despair about everything. Just how much of a difference can one person make? Our columnist Zahra Barri is putting that to the test by trying to tackle the issues closer to home. She’s heading out and about in Kent, volunteering with the small but essential organisations doing good work across the county. Today, in her first Volunteer Kent column, she’s been to Foal Farm Animal Rescue on the Kent/London border to pitch in and learn about their work…

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You might have already read my previous column, Volunteer Medway on

Local Authority

, where I report on community projects. Born out of my frustration at feeling powerless to the global atrocities, I hope to show that volunteering in small, localised ways embodies both the idiom and ideology that ‘charity begins… in Kent!’

Zahra delivers snack time at Foal Farm Animal Rescue.

This edition, I volunteered at Foal Farm Animal Rescue because I’m a sucker for anything doe-eyed and floppy-haired (why I love the Super Furry Animals). My day on the farm consisted of tending to two pigs (Pablo and Picasso), a flock of sheep, a parade of ponies, a cloister of cows and a gathering of goats, aka the Large Animals Department (also the name of the Super Furry Animals tribute band).

I helped clean their living quarters, or ‘mucking out’ as they call it in the business, because it involves a lot of MUCK. I also fed them a rainbow of veggies, biscuits and polos, of whom most of them were happy to exchange for cuddles and cooing. This was with the exception of the aptly named Nudge. Nudge was a goat who thought he was the G.O.A.T (greatest of all time) and so possessed a bad boy attitude, which saw him systematically headbutting me in the shins in lieu of affection.

Zahra with Nudge.