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Home detention, after 610 calves die

Home detention, after 610 calves die


A 53-year-old Rakaia woman, charged with the reckless ill treatment of more than 600 calves, has been sentenced to seven months’ home detention.
She’s Lisa-Jane Claire Miller, who was also disqualified from owning calves or cattle for five years and ordered to pay $3975 in vet fees.
Miller, who appeared in the Ashburton District Court on Monday, purchased 687 calves to rear on her Rakaia property in 2020.
A total of 610 calves died or had to be put down after Miller failed to provide adequate food or medical care between early August 2020 and late January 2021.
Miller’s lawyer, Grant Fletcher, said Miller did not set out to intentionally harm the calves but became overwhelmed by the enormity of the problem when the calves developed scours and made “enormous errors of judgement”.
He said Miller was new to calf rearing and did not realise the risks.
Her judgement was also potentially clouded by unresolved grief from the death of her partner and father.
Fletcher said the situation had “spiralled out of control” and Miller became “paralysed by indecision”.
Fletcher asked Judge Raoul Neave to consider a sentence of community detention.
The prosecutor for the Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI) told the court that Miller had experience with calf rearing since 2014, and it was not correct to say she had no experience.
MPI said the offending was not over a couple of days or weeks, but over a period of two to three months with 15 to 20 calves dying a day.
Miller had consulted a vet and been offered help, but did not accept that help, they said.
Judge Neave said Miller had purchased 687 calves. Some started to die within three weeks.
Six weeks from the purchase, between six and 13 calves were dying daily.
Miller visited a vet and told the vet the scour outbreak was minor.
She was given antibiotics and declined a vet visits, saying she was an experienced calf rearer.
A few weeks later Miller visited the vet again. She said the treated calves had improved, but more had become ill.
She did not disclose the large number of new cases or the large number of deaths.
The vet refused to provide more antibiotics without visiting the calves.
A few days later, Miller went to another vet clinic.
She was given a small amount of antibiotics and again failed to tell the vet the full extent of the problem.
Miller went nine weeks before seeking veterinary help again – and only after a complaint from a member of the public.
A farm visit found the calves had not been given adequate food, and some had no access to water.
Judge Neave said the calves had been wasting away and dying for several weeks.
Of the surviving calves, four had to be euthanised during a vet visit on December 1, 2020 and another calf was put to sleep on a second visit in January 2021.
Only 77 of the calves were left by January 2021 and they were in poor condition.
Judge Neave said accepted that Miller got out of her depths and became overwhelmed, had an inflated assessment of her ability to cope and mislead vets who may have been able to help.
In sentencing, the judge gave Miller credit for her early guilty plea and the fact she had not been before the court before.

  • By Sharon Davis