Jeremy Clarkson has issued an opening update for Diddly Squat Farm Shop in Oxfordshire after the outbreak of Bovine TB.
Announcing that a case of Tuberculosis (TB) had broken out on Thursday (July 31), Mr Clarkson said on X: “Bad news from Diddly Squat.
“We’ve gone down with TB. Everyone here is absolutely devastated.”
He then added later on in the afternoon: “I should clear this up, really. It’s Bovine TB that we have.
“It doesn’t affect people, just our poor cows.”
There was then some confusion as to whether or not Diddly Squat Farm in Chadlington had been forced to close as a result.
Mr Clarkson told Peter Cardwell on Times Radio: “It’s awful, it is awful. You have a test every six months on the cows, and then you sort of become blasé. It’s a hypothetical threat.
“And then the vet looks up as he did yesterday lunchtime and said, ‘I’m really sorry this one’s failed’. So that means we’re now locked down and it’s just dreadful, absolutely dreadful.
“It’s only been not even 24 hours since I found out, and it occupies my mind. Well, it was occupying my mind, but I got up this morning and found one of my puppies has died.
“And we’ve got a very sickly calf. Honestly, farming? I’m not enjoying it this week.
“[The farm will be closed for] Certainly two months because that’s how long we have to wait before we do another test.
“The farm shop’s unaffected – it’s only cows that get affected by it.”
Mr Clarkson later appeared to contradict his own words in the interview with Times Radio on Friday morning by saying the farm “is not shut”.
“We just can’t buy or sell any cows,” he added.
A recent update from the Diddly Squat Farm Shop Instagram page has now revealed that the shop will be open as usual this week.
The caption read: “Diddly Squat Farm Shop is open.
“We’re open Tuesday to Sunday from 9.30am to 4.30pm. Hope to see you soon.”
Oxfordshire is an “edge area” for bovine TB, meaning it is a buffer zone between high-risk and low-risk areas – so most herds are subject to six-monthly TB tests by default.
There have been several cases in the area of Oxfordshire near Diddly Squat Farm in recent weeks, according to ibTB, a mapping platform for the disease in England and Wales.
Filming on Clarkson’s Farm series five is currently underway, meaning that the TB outbreak is likely to feature in the upcoming episodes on Prime Video.
