Horse owner found guilty over castration without anaesthetic

A Northland man has been convicted of castrating a horse without anaesthetic.

The horse died two days later.

Ohaeawai machine operator Maxwell Joseph Lee Anderson was found guilty of performing a surgical procedure on a two-year-old colt in such a way that the horse suffered unnecessary or unreasonable pain.

Anderson, 37, denied two alternative charges laid under the Animal Welfare Act by the Bay of Islands SPCA when he appeared in Kaikohe District Court.

Judge Duncan Harvey convicted him on one charge and remanded him for sentencing on October 25.

SPCA inspector Jim Boyd said he investigated a complaint that a colt had bled to death after being castrated on Anderson's property in December last year.

Anderson admitted castrating the colt with a sterilised knife and said he gave the animal antibiotics to prevent infection.

Mr Boyd said Anderson told him that two days later he found the horse tangled in a fence. It had a broken leg, so he asked a friend to destroy it.

Anderson had said he knew it was against the law for anyone other than a vet to castrate horses.

In court, Anderson argued that many farmers and horse owners had castrated their own horses for many years without anaesthetics.

- NZPA