Farmer faces jail after stock perish
The man at the centre of one of New Zealand’s biggest cases of animal ill-treatment by a farmer is staring down the barrel of a prison sentence after admitting his inaction caused the death of hundreds of sheep and their suffering.
All of this happened because Colin Donald McConachy was too proud and ashamed to ask for help.
Thousands of animals suffered as he sat on his hands.
The 72-year-old Marton man could be banned from having authority over farm animals, after he pleaded guilty in the Marton District Court yesterday to eight charges relating to ill-treatment of animals on his farms.
The Ministry of Primary Industries is hoping for the ban to be applied when McConachy is sentenced in October, where he faces a maximum five years in jail and a $100,000 fine.
The summary of facts paints a picture of McConachy as a man who, by his own admission, was ‘‘too proud and ashamed’’ to take help when it was offered – and needed the most.
In total, 3630 animals suffered to varying degrees because of McConachy’s inaction.
An anonymous tipoff last September to the ministry’s animal welfare hotline led inspectors to their horrific discovery.
They found 10 dead animals within 100 metres of entering the property. As they looked further, the death toll quickly rose.
Thirty dead sheep and two dead cows were found near a 120-strong mob of year-old cattle, which were in poor condition, ataxic and in a paddock with insufficient pasture.
McConachy then arrived, telling an inspector he had already buried about 50 dead sheep and that the rest of the 260-hectare home farm would be in a similar state.
The only feed of significance on the property was 10 hectares of kale, fenced off to all stock apart from a small number of shorn lambs. Piles of dead sheep were found in locations away from public view, which the summary said showed McConachy knew about the situation for some time.
Inspectors found 382 dead sheep on McConachy’s farmland, while another 334 were in such poor condition they had to be put down. Autopsies found no evidence of disease, putting starvation as the sole cause of death.
All the while, McConachy was found to have a large store of hay that, for whatever reason, he had not given to his stock.
Of the remaining 2783 live sheep, 85 per cent were in extremely poor condition.
McConachy was ordered to put down any animals that were subsequently unable to be raised.
But during a visit a week after the first inspection, an inspector found seven hoggets shut in an old stock crate with no food or water.
Four of the hoggets were dead, while the other three had to be put down. McConachy said he had put them in the crate after they went down two days prior, but forgot about them.
A vet quoted in the summary of facts said the situation highlighted poor management decisions.
‘‘[McConachy] had options of trading stock, buying supplementary feed, and chose to do nothing,’’ the vet said.