Former teacher Fleur Cutfield has a mobile menagerie on her lifestyle block that she takes to visit retirement villages, pre-schools and schools.
Eyes twinkle and smiles widen as people who live at Pukekohe's Possum Bourne retirement village come across farm animals that have, all of a sudden, appeared in the carpark.
There's a goat, a llama, a miniature horse, a rooster, some rabbits, and a sheep. They're in temporary pens although Zoro the llama will soon hop in the lift to visit residents in the retirement village's hospital wing.
Eleven-year-old Madison Cutfield has brought the animals here. She's completing the community service requirement of an award she is working towards. Her mum Fleur Cutfield owns Little Bo Peep's mobile farm.
Madison says she just wanted to cheer people up. She thought the retired men and women might like to see the animals "because they haven't seen them in a while".
She was right.
"Goats, we used to breed them when we were on the farm," says one woman as she slowly puts her upturned hand out for a goat to nibble at the pellets in her palm. "There were very destructive and every time I went to work in the car they were phhht-phhht over to the neighbours place so they didn't last long."
It's not the first time Fleur Cutfield has taken animals to a retirement home. She says when her own grandmother was dying, family members were sitting with her, very upset so she decided to take Zoro in.
Her grandmother was very low and hadn't spoken for a while.
"We took him in the unit where she was and, as he poked his head around the door, she sat bolt upright and she went 'would you look at the markings on that thing'. She had no teeth in. You could see this huge gummy grin and she sat there laughing and chatting and I think that was one of the last times she did talk."
Fleur also takes animals into pre-schools and schools. She says it gives children the opportunity to develop a respect for them.
"A lot of children haven't seen an animal up close, especially farm animals. They don't know the difference between a cow and a goat or a sheep. It's a lot of learning around compassion and thinking about the needs of animals."
