A 42-year-old farmer has been sentenced to 30 days in prison after pleading guilty to more than 20 animal welfare charges.
Kenneth Coombes, from Skiberreen, Co Cork had been charged with cruelty to pigs, sheep, horses, ducks and dogs.
Judge James McNulty described the details of the case as shocking and said Coombs must never again own, manage or mind an animal. He also directed that Coombes be psychiatrically assessed.
Coombes runs a 70-acre farm at the Carrig outside Skibbereen in West Cork. Last November he gave undertakings that he would dispose of over 100 animals, which were being kept in appalling conditions on the farm, but he failed to do so.
When Department of Agriculture inspectors visited his farm last week they found 58 sheep and lambs, 17 pigs, seven horses and a foal, as well as 30 sheep on another farm.
Judge James McNulty was told at an earlier court hearing that an unburied carcass was lying on the front lawn of Coombes' home; two dogs were living in a barrel; 19 ducks had to fight with rats for their food and had lost most of their feathers; several pigs were wandering on the road, while others were crammed into a car trailer which had so many holes on the floor they couldn't lie down.
The farm was also so badly infested with rats that the Health Service Executive had to be called in to prevent a risk to public health.
Defence solicitor Ray Hennessy said prison would do nothing for Kenneth Coombes but Judge James McNulty pointed out that he had previous convictions and had benefited from a suspended sentence in the past.
The Animal Care Society, which rescued a number of dogs on the farm, said they were being kept in horrendous conditions.
Judge McNulty described the details of this case as shocking. He accepted that Kenneth Coombes was retarded in his maturity but he said that could not be used as an excuse.
