IRELAND-CALVES LEFT WITH NO MILK OR WATER.
Thirteen calves, some dead for up to a week, were piled in the shed of a dairy farmer who has been ordered to pay €20,000 in fines and costs by a court, according to the Irish Independent.
Kevin Brady, of Ballinloe, Coole, Co Westmeath pleaded guilty to two animal welfare charges and two charges of failing to remove carcasses without undue delay.
Judge John Neilan said he was "absolutely appalled" and that Mr Brady lacked common sense and compassion in dealing with his livestock.
Mullingar District Court heard that when Department of Agriculture inspector Jonathan Cooney attended the farm on March 8, 2007, he found at least 13 Friesian and Jersey calves piled up in a shed.
The inspector estimated the animals to be between a couple of days and five weeks old. Judging by their condition, he estimated some had been there for up to a week.
In a field on the farm, a dead Friesian cow had been partly scavenged and some of the tissue removed. The inspector, who has 20 years’ experience as a vet, said the animal had been there for a number of days.
Normal practice would be to have the carcass removed to a knackery within 24 hours. In another shed, the inspector found 31 calves kept in inadequate conditions, without water, hay, silage or meal.
No concentrate was provided as one would expect for animals at that age, and, despite the fact that the animals appeared ill, there were no fluids available. In three pens, there were two calves where there was only sufficient room for one.
In yet another shed, the inspector found a six-week-old calf, "recumbent and in a distressed state with pneumonia".
Barrister Lydia Bunnie said her client, who has 360 acres of land and had 215 cows in his dairy herd at the time of the offences, had lived on a farm all his life and she listed his qualifications and considerable experience.
She said there had been an outbreak of pneumonia on the farm and Mr Brady had been trying to deal with it but accepted his responsibility in all cases.
He said that the presence of a carcass in a field on a farm where milk was "harvested for the purpose of sale is at loggerheads with proper husbandry"."I am appalled that someone would deprive animals of water, the mainstay of life in all forms. There wasn’t as much as a teaspoon of water."
Mr Brady was fined €4,000 and ordered to pay €1,000 in costs for each of the four offences
