An Invercargill farmer has been sentenced to nine months of home detention for serious animal welfare offending.

Bevan Scott Tait, 52, was also banned from owning or managing farm animals for four years and ordered to do 150 hours of community service.

He was sentenced at Invercargill District Court yesterday having earlier plead guilty to eight charges under the Animal Welfare Act.

As a result of his offending, 226 of his sheep and three lambs had to be euthanised because they were emaciated and suffered from flystrike.

MPI Animal Welfare launched an investigation at his Tussock Creek farm following a complaint in 2019.

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That led to a series of inspections from April until August that year by MPI, Farm Consultants, and Veterinarians.

MPI national manager of Animal Welfare and NAIT Compliance, Gray Harrison, says: "Our inspectors found animals in some distress and directed Mr Tait to take corrective action, including euthanising eight sheep.

"We followed up and found Mr Tait had made some improvements and treated affected sheep for fly-strike.

"However, we received another complaint later that month and executed a search warrant where our inspectors found three dead cows. There was also not enough pasture available to his sheep and no evidence of supplementary feed being provided to them.

"We sent a farm consultant to assess stocking rate, stock condition, available feed, and nutritional value of feed on farm.

"As a result, we directed Mr Tait to make a number of improvements to ensure his animals were properly fed and protected from disease."

But at an unannounced follow-up visit, MPI found Tait did not follow the directions.

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"It was clear Mr Tait was not doing what was needed to look after his animals so we obtained a court order which directed him to de-stock within three days.

"At the end of that time we visited again, but he had failed to destock. We had a vet assess each animal individually, and as a result 226 sheep and three lambs had to be euthanised.

"No one likes to see animals put down, but it was a necessary action in this situation to alleviate the suffering they were enduring."

MPI sold and rehomed the rest of his animals - 35 cattle, 387 sheep, and about 100 lambs.

"It’s fair to say that this type of offending is rare. Most farmers do the right thing by their animals and Mr Tait's neglect of his animals was one of the worst we've seen for some time," Harrison says.

Anyone who is aware of animal ill-treatment or cruelty can report it to the MPI animal welfare complaints on freephone 0800 00 83 33.