What happened to Diddly Squat TB outbreak after Clarkson's Farm season five finished filming
Unlike previous seasons of Clarkson’s Farm, season five ends on a particularly dour note.
In addition to Jeremy Clarkson being rushed to hospital as part of his ongoing treatment for his cancer diagnosis, the farm was in the midst of its biggest challenge to date: a bovine Tuberculosis (TB) outbreak.
In heartbreaking scenes in the final episode the first ever cow to have been bought on Diddy Squat farm, whilst pregnant with two calves, is taken to be slaughtered after a suspected outbreak of TB leads to two inconclusive tests.
Clarkson however is left with his ‘blood boiling’ after a post-mortem of the cow shows that she did not actually have TB, but the farm is required to stay in lockdown at the time of filming finishing for at least another month.
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Fans of the TV show who don’t keep up with Diddly Squat will have been left with a cliffhanger, but Clarkson has actually given updates on what happened with the TB outbreak following the end of filming.
The outbreak took place in August of 2025, with Clarkson having announced it as ‘devastating news’
Clarkson actually announced the outbreak in August of last year, well before season five was released. He stated on X that the farm had been hit with ‘devastating news’, later sharing a picture of Pepper the cow as a calf after she was killed.
The farm spent months on lockdown, with the fear of a mass slaughter hanging over their head.
Whenever a cow is infected, or fails a TB test as Pepper did by having two inconclusive tests, the entire herd has to be placed on lockdown and any offending cows are legally required to be slaughtered per DEFRA.
After seven months of lockdown Clarkson announced they were TB-free, but it came with bad news
Clarkson revealed in a column for The Sun in March of 2026 that the farm was out of lockdown measures.
He said: “After seven months of lockdown, Diddly Squat farm became officially TB-free this week.”
Unfortunately though, good news in one area of the farm came with bad news in another. He went on to explain: “But before we had a chance to celebrate, we found out that one of our donkeys has laminitis and must be put down.
“In farming, it seems you are allowed one bit of good news, but it must always be accompanied by some kind of disaster.”
The presenter has also explained the enormous disruption of lockdown procedures, even if the farm is now TB-free. Speaking in a column for The Times at the time of the outbreak, Clarkson said: “You aren’t allowed to operate as a business.
“You have to isolate them for two months. So all the barns we needed to store the grain in, we now have to convert into a cow hospital. We’ve got another calf with pneumonia, so that needs to be housed. And we can’t buy or sell a cow now because the farm officially, you know, has TB.”
Whilst it took a while, the farm is now officially TB-free.
Clarkson’s Farm season five is available to stream on Prime Video now.
Topics: Clarkson's Farm, Jeremy Clarkson, Entertainment, TV and Film, TV
Michael Slavin