Alex Nation's sweet photo of her son descends into a veganism debate.

Don’t you hate when you post a sweet, innocent photo of your son on Instagram and the comments section immediately spirals into a debate on the merits of veganism?

…No? That hasn’t happened to you?

Well, spare a thought for Alex Nation, then. On Monday, the former Bachelor star treated her followers to a photo of her son Elijah cuddling a chicken, explaining it was one of his favourite things to do “on the farm”.

One of Elijah’s most favourite things to do on the farm is cuddle the chooks. This is not hard to tell if you are judging by the look on his face ❤????

A post shared by Alex Nation (@alexandranation) on Apr 30, 2017 at 5:05pm PDT

So far, so cute.

However, some commenters couldn’t resist seizing the opportunity to lecture the mum of one on her lifestyle, parenting, and eating habits.

Kicking things off, one wrote: “Love them don’t eat them or their eggs. Make the connection. Why do we teach our children to eat slaughtered animals yet pay them in artificial environments like petting zoos? All lives matter.”

“Hopefully he doesn’t eat chicken burgers… you can’t love an animal and then eat them,” added another, as if on cue.

At this point, Nation decided to hop in and make her voice known, writing, “Let’s not turn a really cute and innocent picture of my little man into debate.”

Listen: Is it any wonder parents are now putting disclaimers on their Instagrams? (Post continues after embed.)

From there, things just got messier. Other commenters got in on the action, telling the first posters to “stop preaching”, which they didn’t really enjoy.

“As a vegan one would think you’d be encouraging the awareness that chickens are for admiring and respecting not eating. Maybe the boy is vegan… many people reading these posts are not,” one responded.

Hoooooooo boy.

Plenty of fans seemed bewildered as to how such a sweet photo descended into something else altogether.

"It's a photo of a boy holding a chicken. I don't see him devouring it. Oh and he and the rest of us can eat whatever we like," one wrote.

"I can't believe all you 'animal lovers' have so much hatred towards a little boy and a chicken. Maybe put some of that animal lovers towards fellow humans," added another.

Jeez. It's enough to make you want to throw your phone in a fire.

We're officially adding "photos of adorable children cuddling chickens" to the long, long list of things people get irate about on Instagram.