A 64-year-old Riverland man pleaded guilty to animal cruelty charges after a “chronically neglected” merino ram was found with an overgrown horn rubbing against its right eye and a chain embedded in flesh around its leg.
Finalised in the Berri Magistrates court recently, the case saw the 64-year-old owner plead guilty to charges of ill treatment of an animal and placed on a $500, two-year good behaviour bond.
The RSPCA has described the case as a “graphic reminder of the potential consequences of leaving farm animals untended in paddocks”.
Responding to a cruelty report, an RSPCA South Australia inspector found the ram in a paddock at Moorook in July 2020. The RSPCSA said the ram’s owner was given opportunity to remedy the situation but failed to do so.
“As a result, the ram and a merino ewe were seized, crutched and the chain removed with bolt-cutters from the ram’s leg,” the RSPCA said in a statement.
“An angle grinder was used to cut the horn that had curled across the ram’s eye.”
RSPCA South Australia’s chief veterinarian Dr Brad Ward said the surface of the eye had significant opacity due to inflammation, resulting in reduced vision.
Dr Ward stated the ram would have suffered significant, unrelenting pain caused by the “very hard horn” rubbing on the eye’s cornea, and that the animal had endured this pain for at least nine months.
Three weeks after the removal of the section of horn covering the ram’s eye, the inflammation and opacity had almost completely resolved and the ram had recovered near full-sight.
Dr Ward estimated the chain had been embedded in the ram’s leg for between 10-20 days, with the animal suffering “significant pain, because the chain had split the skin, leaving the underlying soft tissues exposed”.
Fortunately, once the chain was cut off the injury healed completely. Both sheep have now been rehomed.
In court, the defendant stated that he had simply not gotten around to removing the horn from the ram, and that he failed to realise the chain around the animal’s leg was too tight.
RSPCA South Australia’s chief inspector Andrea Lewis said the defendant displayed ignorance of basic sheep husbandry requirements that had resulted in his animal suffering considerable, long term and easily avoidable pain.
“It is not good enough to put animals in a paddock, close the gate and leave them to fend for themselves,” Ms Lewis said.
In addition to his good behaviour bond, the defendant has been prohibited from owning any livestock until further order. He was also ordered to surrender any livestock to RSPCA South Australia within seven days.