Home detention for causing calf deaths

Along with home detention, she was disqualified under the Animal Welfare Act from owning or being responsible for calves or cattle for five years. The court also ordered Miller to pay costs of $3,975.48.

She has been banned from owning or overseeing calves and cattle and placed on home detention for seven months.

Between August 2020 and October 2020, Miller bought 687 calves to rear at her farm. A later MPI investigation found the animals started to die within three weeks of arriving at her farm and by the middle of Septamber between 15 and 30 calves were dying daily, says MPI team leader investigations south, Mark Sanders.

"Welfare problems with the calves began early with a scours outbreak and while Miller did initially seek help, including gaining antibiotics from a veterinarian, the problems muliplied and hundreds of calves that she was in charge of eventually died."

In December, MPI received a complaint from a member of the public and sent inspectors and a vet to visit the farm.

"They found more than one hundred dead calves scattered around the farm that had died from starvation, another hundred calves in extremely poor condition because of a lack of food, with four having to be euthanised to end their suffering, along with a lack of good grass for grazing and a lack of water for the animals," says Sanders.

"The priority was to ensure the animals were looked after, so the inspector issued a Notice of Direction requiring all remaining calves to be examined by a vet. An animal health management plan was also produced for Ms Miller and a search warrant for the property was obtained and carried out.

"If Ms Miller had not neglected these calves and had them examined by a veterinarian when advised to in those early stages - the situation might have been very different. As an experienced calf-rearer, she knew what her responsibility was to these young animals but failed them," Sanders says.