A WORCESTERSHIRE farmer who kept animals in appalling conditions has been banned from keeping livestock for two years.

When vets visited Ridgeway Park Farm in Throckmorton, near Pershore, they found two cows surrounded by faeces and emaciated and dehydrated to the point that they lacked the energy to even get up.

Further inspection of the 450-strong herd revealed that 395 (88 per cent) of them were in need of intervention to improve their condition, with 186 (37 per cent) of them being in an extremely poor condition, indicating a prolonged lack of care.

The scale of the situation was described by one of the vets as one of the worst in terms of scale and number that he had seen in his 25-year career.

Farmer John Bruce, 43, Crabbe Yard, Wadborough, near Pershore, pleaded guilty to five offences at Worcestershire Magistrates Court including unnecessary suffering, a failure to provide the required care, feed, separation of animals and notification of the death of an animal.

He also asked the court to take into consideration a further seven offences relating to breaking a prohibition notice that prevented him from moving cattle without a license, after previously failing to comply with bovine tuberculosis (TB) testing at the farm.

The court heard that on two separate occasions last year one animal had been found dead and the majority of the remaining herd had been found in very poor conditions at the farm.

Animal health officers from WRS trading standards team and veterinarians from the Animal Plant and Health Agency (APHA) had visited the farm in February and April 2015.

Bruce had previously repeatedly ignored advice from APHA vets who had visited the farm on several occasions.

In mitigation, Bruce told magistrates that his farm had been run by a manager at the time.

Magistrates handed Bruce a 12-month community order with 200 hours unpaid work and 10 days rehabilitation activities, ordered him to pay £9,850 costs and a £60 victim surcharge, and gave him a banning order from any involvement with livestock for two years starting from Thursday, May 19.

Simon Wilkes, head of Worcestershire Regulatory Services, said: "Not only is there a duty of care to treat animals adequately but one of the key reasons for this legislation is the clear need to stop the spread of diseases.

"The rules don’t just prevent disease spreading within one farm where cattle are kept, but they also prevent it spreading to other farms, and they give certainty to our food chain as well. The rules are there to protect farm animals, farmers and consumers alike.”