Mossgiel Organic Farm hits back at online abuse over video

The viral video from Mossgiel Organic Farm got one million views on Facebook, with the organic farm team blaming "extremist groups and anti-dairy peeps" for the worst of the abuse.

Some accused the farm of abusing calves through spikes, piercings and starvation.

The Mossgiel team is led by farmer Bryce Cunningham, a stout defender - and promoter - of the farm's work on social media.

A Mossgiel spokesperson said in a Facebook post: "A video of one of our calves suckling mum with a weaning tag has now reached one milliion views here on Facebook, and it’s certainly been raising some, eh, ‘interesting’ comments.

"It’s been a while since we had abuse online, with extremist groups and anti-dairy peeps disliking us because we dared stick our heads above the parapet and talk about what we do.

"If you've been following for a while, you'll know that we have been experimenting with 'Cow with Calf' dairying here on our own farm - where we keep cows and calves together until weaning, and bottle this milk separately."

They continued: "A major part of this system is HOW and WHEN we wean calves. We've tried different methods - leaving the calves suckling for nine months before moving them into separate groups caused the cows teat damage and bullying in the herd.

"After five years of planning, testing, failing and trying again - we now use 'wean flaps'. The flaps allow mum and calf to stay together for much longer, but let us wean the calve at 4-5 months; which stops the teat damage to the cows, persuades the calves to graze more grass and the cows to produce milk that we can bottle and offer to our supporters.

"It's a system that we truly believe in.

"Over the past 24 hours though, a post we put up months ago showing a calf with one of the flaps has gone a bit viral, and attracted a LOT of negative attention; particularly from France for some reason...

A Mossgiel farmer with a weaning tag (Image: Mossgiel Organic Farm)

"We've been accused of all sorts - with some of the anti-dairy crew creating some very creative ways to try and tell the world that we're abusing calves through spikes, piercings and starvation.

"So; to show everything that's involved in fitting these tags, Farmer B decided to fit one himself (although his nostrils are a wee bit small)."

The farm added in a second post: "The system allows us to have a ‘cow happiness manager’ who solely spends their day looking after our small herd of cows and calves – an impossible thought if we sold milk at bottom price to the milk market, as we’d generally need hundreds and hundreds of cows just to cover the costs.

"The calves stay with mum until AFTER weaning, and don’t leave until their bond is strong enough with other calves.

"Even better? We get to openly talk about it to YOU – we don’t hide from challenges, and we don’t shy from criticism.

"That’s why we invited groups like Animal Rebellion to the farm this year to see what we do, and talk live on air with BBC Radio Scotland and other media channels.

"Our mission is to find out if cow with calf can be viable on more than single farms – to share our journey and to find a sustainable path for small scale Scottish dairy in an industry that does not value anything other than paying the lowest price possible to farmers."

Earlier this year Bryce took on representatives of the Oatly Group, which manufactures alternatives to dairy products using oats, in a climate change debate on the social news and discussion website Reddit - but admitted he felt "let down" after no-one else from the dairy industry stepped up to fight its corner.

In September the farm won two prizes at the Scotland Food and Drink Excellence Awards - including the 'best overall product' accolade for its organic whole milk.

Alongside its own herd of 45 Ayrshire cows, Mossgiel is also the platform for a co-operative that includes five other Scottish organic farms.