Jeremy Clarkson has shared the latest bout of heartbreak he and his partner Lisa Hogan have faced at his Oxfordshire farm.
Throughout the Amazon Prime Video series, fans have witnessed firsthand the emotional toll running the farm has on the pair, with both forming strong attachments to the animals.
Tears flowed following a series of piglet deaths in season three of Clarkson’s Farm, and Mr Clarkson even went as far as to adopt one of his cattle, named Pepper, as a “pet cow” in a last-ditch attempt to stop it going to slaughter.
Ahead of season five, which arrives next month, Mr Clarkson has shed light on what life has been like of late in the Cotswolds, and, as expected, it’s been far from halcyon days.
Kaleb Cooper, Jeremy Clarkson and Lisa Hogan will return in Clarkson’s Farm season 5 | AMAZON
In his latest column, Mr Clarkson explained that he welcomed one of his daughters and his granddaughter to stay for a recent weekend in the hopes of showing them the wonders of the countryside.
However, things quickly went awry. “One of Lisa’s treasured (and very expensive) Valais blacknose sheep had mastitis and was struggling to feed her two lambs,” he began.
“So she needed to be brought out of the field, with her lambs, put in a hastily built maternity ward in one of the barns, and given some antibiotics.”
The following day, Mr Clarkson said that even to his “untrained” eye, he could tell there had been no improvement.
Lisa Hogan and Jeremy Clarkson regularly have to deal with deaths on the farm
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“I had to call the vet, who arrived in short order and quickly deduced that the mastitis had become gangrenous and that the sheep must be euthanised,” he said.
The decision hit Ms Hogan particularly hard. Fans of the Clarkson’s Farm star will know all too well her fondness for the animals, with them regularly featuring in her social media updates.
Mr Clarkson explained: “So we did that, and I had to spend the next hour hugging Lisa, who was distraught. She truly loves her Valais blacknoses.”
Later in his Sunday Times column, Mr Clarkson revealed it wasn’t the only death that hit Diddly Squat during what was supposed to be a pleasant family weekend.
One of the lambs from his herd of newly-bought easy-care sheep had separated from the rest of the bunch.
After his granddaughter spotted the lonely lamb, Mr Clarkson insisted that it would eventually be found by its mother and rejoin its woolly pack.
However, that didn’t happen. Instead, Mr Clarkson explained that the young ovine had been attacked and killed by a pack of crows.
The former Top Gear star first broke the news on Instagram earlier this month in a rather blunt social media update.
Lisa Hogan regularly features the sheep on her social media
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All in all, Mr Clarkson surmised: “You think that a farm in the spring sunshine would be about the most Enid Blytonny place on earth.
“Heaven for two little girls from London. But Diddly Squat was turning into the Killing Fields. The stench of death hung heavily among the dandelion seeds.
“My warm and bucolic weekend of wine, good company, good food, and baby animals turned into an orgy of death and diarrhoea.”
The latest bout of horror at Diddly Squat won’t feature in the upcoming fifth season of Clarkson’s Farm. However, fans will get to see how an outbreak of bovine TB devastated the business.
In July last year, Mr Clarkson revealed that bovine tuberculosis had struck his Oxfordshire farm, leaving him and his team reeling.
The former Top Gear presenter first shared the news on X, stating: “Bad news from Diddly Squat. We’ve gone down with TB. Everyone here is absolutely devastated.”
Mr Clarkson clarified that the infection was bovine TB, adding: “It doesn’t affect people, just our poor cows.”
The fifth season of the show will also follow Mr Clarkson’s mission against the government’s inheritance tax changes targeted at farmers.