Thursday, 25 July 2019 07:55

Farmer fined, banned from owning a large herd

Written by  Pam Tipa

A Northland farmer (62) has been fined $5000 and banned from owning more than 70 cows for two years after being found guilty of animal welfare offences.

MPI says animals suffered unnecessarily because the farmer failed to provide for his cattle’s physical, health and daily needs.

Kenneth Charles Wood was sentenced recently at the Whangarei District Court. As well as the fine and ban, he was ordered to pay court costs of $130 and veterinary costs of $525.

MPI brought a prosecution against Woods because of a complaint about the condition of some of his cattle on his Oruawharo property. He owns a 64ha block of which 36.4ha is effective grazing area.

MPI told Dairy News that animal welfare inspectors visited Wood’s farm and found about 80 cattle of mixed age, sex and breed. The cattle had free range over the entire property where internal fencing and infrastructure were derelict. 

Pasture cover was uniformly low, estimated at 1000kg/DM/ha or less across the farm, and there was no evidence of supplementary feed being provided. The inspectors saw cows in poor body condition, especially two emaciated Jersey cattle.  

Wood was found to have failed to ensure sufficient food was available to his cattle as outlined in the Sheep and Beef Code of Welfare and they were underfed for a long time.  

Wood claimed it had been a wet winter and feed was short.

More like this

Drunk on power!

OPINION: The end-of-year booze-up at the posh Northern Club in Auckland must have been a beauty, as the legal 'elite' let their hair down and showed us how entitled and political some in the judiciary really are.

PETA wants web cams in shearing sheds

Animal rights protest group PETA is calling for Agriculture Minister Todd McClay to introduce legislation which would make it mandatory to have live-streaming web cameras in all New Zealand shearing shed.

Featured

Editorial: No joking matter

OPINION: Sir Lockwood Smith has clearly and succinctly defined what academic freedom is all about, the boundaries around it and the responsibility that goes with this privilege.

DairyNZ plantain trials cut nitrate leaching by 26%

DairyNZ says its plantain programme continues to deliver promising results, with new data confirming that modest levels of plantain in pastures reduce nitrogen leaching, offering farmers a practical, science-backed tool to meet environmental goals.

All eyes on NZ milk supply

All eyes are on milk production in New Zealand and its impact on global dairy prices in the coming months.

National

Machinery & Products

JDLink Boost for NZ farms

Connectivity is widely recognised as one of the biggest challenges facing farmers, but it is now being overcome through the…

New generation Defender HD11

The all-new 2026 Can-Am Defender HD11 looks likely to raise the bar in the highly competitive side-by-side category.

» Latest Print Issues Online

Milking It

No Joy

OPINION: Milking It understands a formal disciplinary process is being conducted by Victoria University of Wellington on what one of…

Buttery prize

OPINION: Westland Milk may have won the contract to supply butter to Costco NZ but Open Country Dairy is having…

» Connect with Dairy News

» eNewsletter

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter