Farm manager admits interfering with cows

Police installed a hidden video camera in a milking shed to obtain evidence of a farm manager violently interfering with a dairy cow, a court had been told.

The surveillance was undertaken because of repeated cow deaths and abortions from internal infections on the farm which the owners estimate has cost them more than $100,000, the Taranaki Daily News reported.

Farm manager Rameez Kahn Kerry, 21, of Manaia, Taranaki, pleaded guilty in Hawera District Court yesterday to six charges of wilfully mistreating cows between September 2004 and March 2006.

He was convicted and remanded by Judge Louis Bidois to July 4 for sentencing.

Prosecutor Mark Wilton said Kerry was responsible for day-to-day running of the farm, including milking. In September 2004, while Kerry was on leave, the owners called in a vet to examine sick cows. Three were diagnosed with peritonitis and one of them had to be put down.

Over the 2005-06 milking season, 19 cows died. Some were put down, some were found dead. In five cases, peritonitis was confirmed as the cause of death.

The farm owners informed police and asked vets to investigate.

The number of peritonitis cases was abnormal and their opinion was that the injuries were caused by insertion of some foreign object into the rectum or vagina. The farmers questioned Kerry about this and he denied sticking any foreign objects into cows.

But cows continued to die, the court was told.

The police then decided to install a video camera at the milking shed to film the defendant during milking. The tape replay showed Kerry using a piece of alkathene pipe more than a metre long to interfere with the cow.

When confronted with the video evidence, he admitted injuring this cow and one other, but denied being responsible for any other injuries or abuse.

- NZPA