A Rangitikei farmer has been sent to prison for 28 months and banned from being in charge of animals indefinitely over the preventable deaths of lambs and sheep.

Peter James Valentine (63) was sentenced in the Taihape District Court today (March 10) on 12 charges under the Animal Welfare Act, following a successful prosecution by the Ministry for Primary Industries. Three of these charges were wilful ill-treatment of animals – the highest level under the Act. Along with the prison sentence, Mr Valentine was ordered to pay $10,710 in costs for veterinary services and mustering fees.

“All farmers or people in charge of animals are responsible for the welfare of their animals at all times. This includes providing quality feed and timely veterinarian attention. A lot of animals died from being afflicted with flystrike and other parasites. Most farmers do the right thing for their animals, but Mr Valentine failed to live up to this responsibility,” says MPI Regional Manager Animal Welfare and NAIT Compliance, Gray Harrison.

When Animal Welfare Inspectors visited Mr Valentine’s Taihape property they found 24 dead lambs and three others that had to be euthanised. The remaining 173 lambs were affected by parasites, flystrike, emaciation and were generally too small in size. They found the pasture the animals were grazing on was unsuitable for their nutritional and welfare needs.

Peter Valentine is an experienced farmer and farms about 2,360 hectares across six hill country properties. He claimed to have recently drenched the lambs when MPI intervened, but a veterinary report following postmortem examination found most lambs died from significant gastrointestinal parasitism, concluding the animals could not have been drenched.

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A later follow-up inspection of Mr Valentine’s five other properties found a similar situation, with a number of sheep suffering from flystrike, six of which had to be euthanised. He was advised, provided written warnings, and directed under the Animal Welfare Act to crutch (dagging) all lambs, treat fly struck sheep, dip all lambs, and shear and dip all ewes, to manage a growing flystrike problem.

“We returned within two weeks and found very little had been done to improve the welfare of his animals, finding 18 dead sheep and four others that had to be euthanised because they were suffering from severe flystrike.

“These animals were subjected to unreasonable distress and pain because of a failure by Mr Valentine to properly address the welfare of his animals by ensuring effective parasite controls were in place. The death of these animals was entirely avoidable,” Mr Harrison says.

Mr Valentine was also directed to dehorn his cattle because of the threat of ingrown horns. It took two notices of direction before he dehorned a steer that had a horn growing into its face, causing the animal pain and distress.

A further inspection at Mr Valentine’s properties found 57 recently dead lambs caused by a lack of nutrition and parasite problems.

“Our message to those farmers who do not take appropriate action to care for their animals is that we will take action in the interest of the animals and where appropriate place the matter before the court,” Mr Harrison says.

Animal welfare is everyone’s responsibility and MPI strongly encourages any member of the public who is aware of animal ill-treatment or cruelty to report it to the MPI animal welfare complaints freephone 0800 00 83 33.

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