Alex Birch has a problem most farmers don’t anticipate. His cows are too damn cute for their own good.
Birch’s Highland cattle, with their thick shaggy coats and Instagram-ready faces, have become a destination. People drive to his 300-acre farm in Baslow Edge, Derbyshire, to hug them, film yoga videos beside them, yank their tails, and leave bags of vegetables as unsolicited snacks. A group of 30 tourists once cornered his entire herd with flashing cameras.
“My cows don’t get any peace,” Birch told the BBC.
His solution, arrived at after exhausting his patience and presumably every other option, is to make the cows less attractive. Birch, 39, plans to crossbreed his Highland cattle with the whitebred shorthorn, a breed he described as a “good, hardy cow” that lacks both the photogenic fluff and the horns that keep drawing crowds. The de-beautification process, he estimates, will take about six years.
“The intention is to make them less photogenic,” he said. Crazy solution to this problem, but okay.
When You Can’t Ban the People, Make the Cows Less Photogenic
Birch tried the obvious route first. He reported TikTok videos of his cattle that he believes function as open invitations for other content-seekers to show up, but according to The Telegraph, the platform never removed them. So here he is, engineering biological deterrence.
“If I had my way, I would ban the people,” Birch said. “But the people won’t go away, so I need to remove what’s attracting them to the cattle.”
Not everyone in the family is on board. His grandfather, David Thorp, introduced the Highland cattle to the area in the 1970s and has watched them become something of a local institution. Birch acknowledged he’s not making this call lightly, but the liability exposure is real. One visitor claimed a cow tried to attack his dog near its calves. Birch worries that a tourist injury could land him in legal trouble, despite having every right to his own land.
For the record, the Peak District National Park Authority has warned the public against hugging or interacting with cattle, citing the risk of being trampled, charged, or attacked, particularly around young animals.
Birch put it more directly. “They are highly unpredictable creatures,” he said. “They are like donkeys, they can kick hard. If you upset one, you will regret it—you will never outrun it.” Still, apparently, not a deterrent.
His grandfather spent decades building that herd. It took TikTok about five minutes to ruin it.
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