A FARM has received hundreds of death threats on social media after being mistaken for an American farm with a similar name.

Vile comments and death threats started to pour in to the social media accounts of Fair Oak Farm in Mayfield at the weekend after a video emerged showing scenes of animal abuse 3,000 miles away at Fair Oaks Farm dairy in Indiana, USA.

The Sussex farm was wrongly tagged in posts on Instagram and Twitter – including by someone threatening “We’re coming for your throats”.

Ian Ledger, who runs the award-winning retreat with his wife Penny, and tries to lead a private life, said: “We have had three or four hundred death threats. It was initially very scary. Now, we’ve had so many we’ve even been becoming a bit complacent about it.

“It still hasn’t gone away. More and more keep coming in.

“You can brush these people off as a bit crazy and hiding behind the anonymity of the internet, but you just don’t know how much someone is likely to turn up and actually carry out one of these threats.”

The American farm has come under intense scrutiny after videos emerged showing animals being dragged by their ears and thrown into plastic enclosures.

The Sussex farm operates more as a retreat for animal lovers to

stay with their pets than a working farm.

Its livestock includes flocks of peacocks and alpaca plus rare Swiss Valais lambs, dubbed the “cutest sheep in the world”.

Ian and Penny started trying to delete the malevolent posts individually but found their account suspended by Instagram and their Facebook ratings drop as the trolls continued to attack.

Ian said: “The problem is it is all so anonymous.

“These people say whatever they want without checking their facts or making sure they are accusing the right people.

“When you try to complain to Facebook or Instagram you just get an automatic reply.

It’s a totally faceless process.

“At times like this someone needs to be accountable.

“It is so damaging to our reputation.

“It has damaged what we have built up over 13 or 14 years on the internet and it’s already damaging our Facebook rating – despite being totally untrue.

“When people put us into Google this is what they now find.”

They are seeking legal advice from anyone with any specialist expertise in the social media field.