CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — So much for sharing the good news about a newborn calf named Pitcher Diego. 
 
 A New Hampshire farm that posted a video of the Scottish Highland calf is coming under fire from animal rights supporters who don't want the animal to be slaughtered. 
 
 The video, posted on Facebook, has gotten nearly 13 million views and sparked a heated debate about eating meat. Many of the comments against the video are from people angry because they think the calf will be slaughtered or had been ripped away from its mother. 
 
 The Concord Monitor reports Yankee Farmer's Market in Warner posted the video of Pitcher Diego, who was born during a snowstorm. In it, the calf — tied up with a red rope — stares into the cameras as he is warmed by an off-screen hair dryer. He appears to quietly moo during the 21-second video. 
 
 Some people are trying to drive down the farm's reviews using Facebook's rating system. Several also have offered to adopt the calf. 
 
 "I'm not sure how you get that much negativity out of a picture of a baby cow," said Farm owner Brian Farmer, who has 30 head of Scottish Highland cattle and 60 head of American buffalo. 
 
 Farmer said he was taken aback by the negative reaction, given his animals roam and graze freely in pastures and are raised without antibiotics or hormones. He says the calf has been returned to its mother, and its thick neck, strong body and gentle disposition make it a good candidate for breeding — rather than a trip to the butcher. 
 
 Farmer said Pitcher Diego will be registered as a breeding animal as part of the farm's effort rebuild its herd of Scottish Highland cattle that have been raised on his other farm, Pitcher Mountain Farm in Stoddard, for five decades. The herd had dwindled from 80 to 12 but has since rebounded to 30 after Farmer took over the farm in 2013. The cattle spend the bulk of their time at three locations on 300 acres. 
 
 "We are trying to do it the right way and not mass producing animals. We are trying to give them the best life possible," Farmer said. "When you raise them that way, they are healthy and happy. When you consume that product, it's a healthy product." ||||| Newborn calf Diego curls up outside on a sunny day at Yankee Farmer’s Market in Warner. Diego caused quite a stir when a video taken shortly after he was born went viral. Caitlin Andrews / Monitor staff 
 
 Diego (left) and his mother Elvira hang out on a sunny day at Yankee Farmer’s Market in Warner. Diego caused quite a stir last week when a video taken shortly after he was born went viral, attracting both positive and negative attention to the farm. Caitlin Andrews—Monitor staff 
 
 Diego (left) and his mother Elvira hang out on a sunny day at Yankee Farmer’s Market in Warner. Diego caused quite a stir last week when a video taken shortly after he was born went viral, attracting both positive and negative attention to the farm. Caitlin Andrews—Monitor staff 
 
 Diego (left) and his mother Elvira hang out on a sunny day at Yankee Farmer’s Market in Warner. Diego caused quite a stir last week when a video taken shortly after he was born went viral, attracting both positive and negative attention to the farm. Caitlin Andrews—Monitor staff 
 
 Diego (left) and his mother, Elvira, hang out on a sunny day at Yankee Farmer’s Market in Warner. Diego caused quite a stir last week when a video taken shortly after he was born went viral, attracting both positive and negative attention to the farm. Caitlin Andrews / Monitor staff 
 
 Monitor staff 
 
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 Yankee Farmer’s Market owner Brian Farmer and his wife wanted to share something cute when they posted a video to their Facebook page last week showing a Scottish Highland calf that was born in a snowstorm. 
 
 Who wouldn’t, they figured, love to see a video of a fluffy newborn animal getting warmed up with a blow dryer? 
 
 Turns out a fair amount of people didn’t love it. 
 
 The video has garnered 12 million views and more than 138,000 shares since Thursday. Some of the global attention has been positive. Farmer named the newborn Diego, after a Spanish family asked if the calf could be named for their 7-year-old son. 
 
 But the video also attracted a fair amount of negative attention from animal rights supporters. 
 
 “Why are you posting videos of cute baby animals when you’re going to kill them and sell them as food?? There’s something really twisted about that,” wrote Lauren-Klair, from the United Kingdom. Several others, from Hawaii to New Orleans, have offered to adopt the calf to save it from its fate. 
 
 Protestors have not only shared their displeasure at seeing a baby animal they believe will soon be slaughtered, but have used Facebook’s starring system to drive down the farm’s reviews. The page has 174 “five-star” ratings and 191 “one-star” ratings as of Tuesday, with only a handful of three- and four-star ratings in between. 
 
 It’s a frustrating situation for Farmer, who said he feels he is doing everything he can to give his animals the best life possible and is raising them ethically. His herds, which include buffalo along with the Scottish Highlanders, mostly roam and eat freely in pastures and are raised without antibiotics or hormones. He said several people assumed Diego was taken away from his mother permanently, or was slated to become veal. Both are untrue, he said: Yankee Farmer’s doesn’t produce veal, and Diego, who was born outside in chilly weather, was returned to his mother shortly after he was dried off. Farmer doesn’t slaughter his animals on site, either, as that requires a license from the USDA. 
 
 “I’m not sure how you get that much negativity out of a picture of a baby cow,” he said. 
 
 Farmer was also concerned with how the protesters are using the review system as a platform for their beliefs about whether animals should be eaten at all, a question he feels goes beyond what his farm stands for and the animal-raising practices they use. 
 
 “A large amount of our customer base are basically vegetarians in the sense that they don’t agree with what the food industry does with animals,” he said. “They’re really interested in addressing the health and humanity of it all.” 
 
 But Farmer said he has been “humbled” by the support he has seen from his customers and the community at large, who have also taken to Facebook to defend the farm. 
 
 “If you’ve ever been there, you know that you can walk right up to the open pastures they keep their animals in, free to roam and graze as they please – no factory farm conditions here. A place deserving praise, not the wholly-undeserved and uneducated insults and hatred being thrown their way from people thousands of miles away who have never set foot there,” Aaron from Warner wrote. 
 
 Love it or hate it, Farmer said they’ll continue to post about their animals in an effort to educate the public on how they live. 
 
 “Not all food is created equal,” he said. “I can haphazardly grow a tomato in my backyard and it will still be better than anything you can buy in a store. And a lot of these people think they’re acting conscientiously, but many growing practices end up harming the planet. There’s a balance between animals, plants and insects – they’re all a part of the ecology.” 
 
 So what’s going to happen to Diego? Turns out he’s the heir to one of the first herds of Scottish Highlanders ever raised in the country: Farmer also owns the Pitcher Mountain Farm in Stoddard, where that breed of cow has been raised for more than five decades. His thick neck, strong body and gentle disposition make him a good candidate for breeding stock, Farmer said. 
 
 (Caitlin Andrews can be reached at 369-3309, candrews@cmonitor.com or on Twitter at @ActualCAndrews.) ||||| Siobhan Bolinger/Smiling Hill Farm via AP | BDN Siobhan Bolinger/Smiling Hill Farm via AP | BDN 
 
 By Callie Ferguson , BDN Staff • February 23, 2018 11:18 am 
 
 Updated: February 23, 2018 12:20 pm 
 
 The shooting deaths of two pregnant animals on different farms are odd, but not related, authorities say. 
 
 Cpl. John Macdonald of the Maine Warden Service said he couldn’t recall the last time an animal was found dead of an apparently intentional gunshot wound — let alone two in the same week. 
 
 The animals were reported dead three days apart, on different farms about 100 miles away from each other. 
 
 The Warden Service is not investigating links between a bullet found lodged in the head of an expectant cow on a Madison farm, and the shooting of a pregnant goat in Scarborough, MacDonald said. 
 
 [Popular Maine farm says someone shot pregnant goat] 
 
 “Just the method of how these things took place — they’re not the same,” Macdonald said, declining to explain further because the shootings are under investigation. 
 
 Farmer Clayton Tibbetts reported his slain cow to the Warden Service on Sunday, when a local taxidermist discovered a bullet in her head while removing her hide, Tibbetts said. He found the cow dead two days earlier, but believed it was due to natural causes because her wound wasn’t clearly visible, he said. 
 
 “She said, ‘I know what really killed your cow,’” recalled the 39-year-old cattle farmer, when the taxidermist reported finding “lead” in the cow’s skull. “She said, ‘yeah, your cow got shot right between the eyes.’” 
 
 Tibbetts found the cow’s 1,500-pound body in the pasture near a snowmobile trail that passes through the farmland, prompting the local snowmobile club to shut down the passage while authorities investigate. It was killed overnight, he said. 
 
 Also on Sunday, wardens and local police were called to Smiling Hill Farm in Scarborough to investigate the “bizarre” death of Ava, a 5-year-old goat that was due in the spring, according to farm manager Warren Knight. 
 
 “But we are hard-pressed to explain this situation. It’s outside of hunting season. This is just really bizarre,” Knight said. 
 
 A farm employee found her snow-covered body outside of a covered pen, far from the road in an area that is not accessible to the public, he said. 
 
 “This was a purposeful act,” he said, carried out overnight during the height of a snowstorm. 
 
 The Warden Service, which is investigating the killings along with other law enforcement agencies, said they don’t have leads in either case and are asking the public to come forward with any information. 
 
 Follow the Bangor Daily News on Facebook for the latest Maine news.
– So much for sharing the good news about a newborn calf named Pitcher Diego. A New Hampshire farm that posted a video of the Scottish Highland calf is coming under fire from animal rights supporters who don't want the animal to be slaughtered, the AP reports. The video, posted on Facebook, has gotten nearly 13 million views and sparked a heated debate about eating meat. Many of the comments against the video are from people angry because they think the calf will be slaughtered or had been ripped away from its mother. The Concord Monitor reports Yankee Farmer's Market posted the video of Pitcher Diego, who was born during a snowstorm. The calf—tied up with a red rope—stares into the cameras as he is warmed by an off-screen hair dryer. Some people are trying to drive down the farm's reviews using Facebook's rating system. Several also have offered to adopt the calf. "I'm not sure how you get that much negativity out of a picture of a baby cow," said Farm owner Brian Farmer. Farmer said he was taken aback by the negative reaction, given his animals roam and graze freely in pastures and are raised without antibiotics or hormones. "We are trying to give them the best life possible," Farmer said. "When you raise them that way, they are healthy and happy." He says Pitcher Diego has been returned to its mother, and its thick neck, strong body, and gentle disposition make it a good candidate for breeding—rather than a trip to the butcher.