A 41-year-old man has been jailed for two years for animal welfare and hygiene offences which led to the deaths of around 2000 hens.

Company director, Peter Armitage, was sentenced at Wick Sheriff Court after inspectors found a catalogue of failings at his farm, including dead hen carcases and rat droppings. Alongside the jail time, Armitage is banned from keeping animals for 15 years as a result of the offences, which occurred between September, 2016 and September, 2017.

Armitage had owned and operated an egg laying unit trading as Caithness Free Range Eggs, which was based at Lochquoy Farm, Durran, by Castletown, Caithness.

Former employee, Kyle Mackay, was sentenced with a Community Payback Order requiring him to carry out 180 hours of unpaid work. The 24-year-old was only 17 when the offences occurred and was employed as the farm manager, taking charge when Armitage was not working.

The court was told that Highland Council first heard about the conditions on the farm following an anonymous call on July 7, 2017, which stated: “Rats and dead chickens lying everywhere the place is disgusting, they need shut down, this place is not up to standards for any animal to live in, the poor chickens look like they are dying.”

Eleven days later, an unannounced inspection was carried out by the council’s Environmental Health and Animal and Plant Health Agency. The inspection found the farm in a poor and dirty state of repair with dead birds and parts of dead birds visible to inspectors as they walked around.

There were also pigs roaming the outbuildings and chicken houses, with chicken carcases lying out in the open. The inspectors noted chicken feet and feathers hanging out from the mouths of the pigs. One of the worst sheds had carcases ‘carpeted’ the ground with the inspection suspecting a whole flock of decomposing birds and chicken carcasses in the area.

This inspection also found that the poultry and pigs had access to bait boxes which contained rat poison. Trays of collected eggs on benches were covered in bird faeces and rat droppings. When asked, a farm worker said that the chickens had been dead for 'about a month and a half.'

Following the inspection, the environmental health officer spoke with Armitage where they agreed that he would voluntarily cease trading with immediate effect. This was followed by Environmental Health issuing the company with a Remedial Action Notice (RAN), under the Food Hygiene (Scotland) Regulations 2006.

The notice reinforced the voluntary closure of the site and stopped all sale of eggs from the unit. Further inspections continued to discover health and welfare breaches with the site voluntarily depopulated on September 5, 2017.

At the court case in Wick, both Armitage and Mackay previously pled guilty to causing unnecessary suffering to approximately 2000 adult hens by failing to provide them with sufficient food and water, causing their deaths. They also pled guilty to allowing pigs access to the hens where they attacked, killed and consumed some of the birds.

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Armitage admitted to failing to keep the premises clean and in good condition. Overall, the court heard that Armitage had failed to meet the needs of approximately 6000 hens. Meanwhile, Mackay pled to a further charge of failing to provide sufficient food and water to a calf which died.

Andy Shanks, procurator fiscal for Grampian, Highland and Islands, said: “The animal welfare and hygiene failings at Lochquoy Farm caused unnecessary suffering and pain to thousands of birds and introduced a significant public health risk through the supply of potentially contaminated eggs to wholesale and retail outlets across the Highland region.

“Peter Armitage and Kyle Mackay’s convictions were down to the collaborative multi-agency working involved in investigating and gathering evidence of these offences.

“I would like to thank Highland Council, the Animal and Plant Health Agency, and the Scottish Government Poultry Unit for the part they played in getting this outcome.

“We expect the highest standards of our food producers and are committed to working with enforcing authorities to ensure that those who do not meet these standards are held to account.”