A grazing and calf rearing company and its former employees have been slapped with hefty fines for their roles that led to the deaths of hundreds of calves at a Southland farm.
VetEnt GC Ltd, former general manager Mark Harrison and former Otago/Southland operations manager Christopher Wilson, were found responsible on Tuesday for the deaths of 457 calves out of 1769 that were sent to an Invercargill farm in 2017.
The company sourced calves and paid calf rearers to increase the calves’ weight to 100kg. In 2017, they contracted a calf rearing farmer to do this over three months for a payment of $180,000. Before this operation began, concerns about the farm facilities such as the size, construction, and lack of quarantine pens, were raised with Harrison and Wilson by independent specialists who inspected the set-up.
As the animals arrived, and the farm became more crowded, disease outbreaks occurred leading to deaths.
A veterinarian raised concerns about a rotavirus and scours problem at the farm with Wilson and Harrison, which was being compounded by the increase in calves at the farm. The veterinarian advised for them to stop sending calves until the situation was under control. While VetEnt GC Limited did initially follow this advice, after a short time, they resumed sending calves to the farm.
"Despite these concerns being brought up before the contract even started, they weren’t properly addressed. They had a responsibility to these young and vulnerable animals to ensure their welfare needs were met and they failed them," MPI director compliance services, Gary Orr said.
"These young and vulnerable animals were not provided with the care they needed and suffered from diseases that were preventable. There quite simply is not any excuse for this kind of neglect," he said.
The Invercargill District Court fined the company $63,000 for ill treatment of animals under the Animal Welfare Act, while Harrison and Wilson were fined $19,000 and $13,000 respectively.
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