An egg farmer who let thousands of chickens starve to death while others were eaten by pigs in a case of “extreme” animal cruelty has been jailed.
Peter Armitage, a former director of Caithness Free Range Eggs Ltd, was locked up and banned from keeping animals for the next 15 years.
The 41-year-old appeared in the dock at Wick Sheriff Court alongside his former employee Kyle Mackay, 24, who dodged a custodial sentence.
The pair admitted a series of offences, including causing the hens unnecessary suffering by failing to give them enough food and water, resulting in their deaths.
The free-range eggs enterprise ceased trading when the company, based at Lochquoy Farm in Castletown, was dissolved on August 6 2019.
But a senior vet had ordered the farm to close in 2017, after an anonymous tip-off about the horrific conditions there where the poultry suffered animal abuse.
Fiscal depute Sharon Ralph took the court through 34 pages of graphic detail about what the sheriff later described as the pair’s “catalogue of horror and animal abuse”.
She said employees described the packing shed as “dirty with the floor thick with dirt”.
Ms Ralph said: “Eggs awaiting grading were routinely eaten by rats in the packing shed.
“They found the poultry sheds to be dirty and the smell unbearable.
“There were major difficulties with the feed tracks not operating and there were chickens that went unfed.
“They also speak of the pigs running loose on the farm and living under the poultry sheds.
“They further state that the pigs were being underfed and were routinely fed broken eggs.”
A new employee had to remove a number of dead chickens on his first day and said that, during his time there, the free range chickens were never let out of the shed.
He said pigs were also “frequently given chickens to eat”.
Pest control on the site amounted to an employee using an air rifle.
The employee also “witnessed chickens drowning in slurry”.
Chickens in shed number six were “ultimately starved to death” and when an employee looked in, they found only five birds alive in the shed, which had housed 2,000 hens.
In July 2017, an anonymous email was sent to the environmental services department of Highland Council.
It said: “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.”
Inspectors then arrived to investigate and the scene of horror that met them included “what looked like a whole flock of decomposing chickens carpeting the floor of shed six”.
Ms Ralph explained: “The smell of ammonia was overpowering and caught in their throats and nostrils and caused their eyes to water profusely.
“The filth everywhere was unlike anything they had witnessed before.”
In a meeting with the environmental health officer, Armitage indicated he would “voluntarily cease trading with immediate effect”.
“A gruesome picture was presented throughout, with issue after issue which cumulatively and severely compromised basic bird welfare,” the fiscal added.
There was evidence of “cannibalizing” – hens eating the decomposing corpses of other hens, as well as an “extensive rat infestation”.
Unnecessary suffering
Armitage and Mackay had pled guilty to causing unnecessary suffering to approximately 2,000 adult hens by failing to provide them with sufficient food and water, resulting in their deaths.
They also pled guilty to allowing pigs access to hens, resulting in them attacking, killing, and consuming some of them.
Armitage also admitted failing to keep the premises clean and maintained in good repair and condition, failing to ensure that adequate procedures were in place to control pests, and fed pigs with eggs and eggshells.
He also allowed pigs and chickens to access and consume broken eggs.
Armitage additionally failed to take reasonable measures to ensure the needs of approximately 6,000 hens were met and that a suitable diet and environment were provided, to allow them to behave normally, and house them apart from other animals and protect them from suffering, injury, and disease.
The offences occurred between September 2016 and September 2017.
Mackay pled guilty to a further charge of failing to provide sufficient food and water to a calf that also died.
‘Horrifying’ animal abuse
Sheriff Joseph Platt told Armitage: “Your offending cannot be seen as an isolated incident, or something done in the heat of the moment; indeed it is the opposite of that.
“It was sustained. It could have been avoided or, at least, stopped once it had started; but it was not.
“Nor is there anything that I have seen in the report, which indicates any substantial degree of remorse on your part.
“The narration of the facts was beyond troubling; it was horrifying.
“The photographs constitute a catalogue of horror and animal abuse.
“Such callous disregard for the welfare of the livestock, for the care of which you were responsible, led to conditions not merely of neglect, but to extreme cruelty as you starved livestock to death.
“Rather than show remorse, the narration also underlines that you sought to blame your co-accused, a young boy who started working with you at, I understand, the age of only 17 and whom, the court was told, was being paid only £5 per hour.
“The only appropriate sentence is a custodial one and any community sentence would not in any way reflect what would be the horror of the general public at the circumstances narrated in this case.”
‘You are not blameless’
Turning to Mackay, previously of Shellbay, John O’ Groats, but now said to be living in Orkney, the sheriff told him: “You were very young when you went to work at the site.
“It proved to be a disastrous decision, to say the very least, that you commenced working life there.
“And all that you saw there will, I hope, stand you in good stead for the future because it provides a stark lesson in how things must not be done.
“However, you are not blameless. You could have taken the action that one of your colleagues took and contacted the authorities.
“Others took a more passive route and simply left. You could not have been blind to their suffering.”
The sheriff jailed Armitage, whose address was given as the farm, for two years and three months and banned him from keeping animals for 15 years.
Mackay was ordered to carry out 180 hours of unpaid work.
Following the sentencing, 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.
“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.”
On July 21 2017, Environmental Health issued Armitage with a Remedial Action Notice (RAN) under the Food Hygiene (Scotland) Regulations 2006.
This effectively reinforced the voluntary closure status of the business and prohibited the operation of the egg grading and packing unit and the supply of eggs for sale.
Furhter inspections and welfare monitoring visits uncovered more issues and eventually, there was a voluntary depopulation of the site on 5 September 2017.