Beef farm's daily YouTube videos keeping it afloat

Farmer Ian Pullen – often accompanied by dog Biskit – has more than 46,000 YouTube subscribers

A beef farmer who uploads videos to YouTube every evening has said the channel is keeping his business afloat.

Ian Pullen, whose family have been in farming since the early 17th Century, now has 46,000 subscribers to his Farmer P channel, with each video making up to £100.

Mr Pullen began documenting life on the Gloucestershire farm so that his late mother Jean Pullen, whom he affectionately calls "The Dragon", could watch from hospital during the pandemic.

His fans now watch over supper – and some, he said, have even sent him love letters.

He said he dare not mention running out of anything for fear of parcels arriving the next day.

The father-of-four, of Bradley Farm in Wotton-under-Edge, said: "We started the YouTube channel with the farm about five or six years ago.

"It's just an open diary of daily life on the farm and what we do. It seems quite a few people like to follow along and see what is going on.

"It means they know how we rear and raise our stuff, and I think that is one of the reasons we are popular... folks know how we do it."

The farm sells meat boxes and pies made from its Dexter cattle

The videos go up at 18:00 each day. "People organise their evenings to watch it," said Mr Pullen, who can often be seeing riding in his tractor with dog Biskit.

"We have subscribers who have their supper at six o'clock now so they can sit and join us to have their supper. It's a mad world.

"An average video could make £100. It's one of those things where the farm is not really making any income now, and to be honest YouTube is keeping us going.

"Without it I think we would struggle now to actually survive as a farm."

Mr Pullen inherited the farm business from his father in 1993, by which time he was also running a tree surgery company, which is still in business too.

His daughter Holli also helps by making bread and using beef from the farm's Dexter cattle to make pies, which he said she posts to customers around the country.