Cedric Cresswell (85) said that members of the Kloof and Highway SPCA had instead been the ones guilty of animal cruelty after they allegedly cut the throats of 21 of his birds they claimed were severely sick or injured.
Cresswell’s comments came after the NSPCA issued a public statement highlighting alleged gross animal cruelty at Eden Rock Poultry Farm in Assagay.
“Many of the carcasses had been left for an extended period of time and the smell of rotting flesh was overpowering”, said the NSPCA’s statement.
Cresswell told Farmer’s Weekly that NSPCA inspectors had arrived early on a Monday morning following a weekend where only skeleton staff was on duty and after a big storm on the preceding Sunday night.
“The birds were frightened by the storm and jumped out their cages into the manure that collects under the cages. There has also been major construction taking place near my poultry houses and the birds have been frightened by the trucks and dust. On the Monday morning my staff would have soon washed the escaped birds, put them under infrared heating lamps to dry, and then put them back into their cages to carry on laying. The SPCA didn’t even give us a chance,” said Cresswell.
The elderly farmer said that he suspected two nearby residents to be behind efforts to have his poultry farm closed down so that the property could be sold and subdivided for weekend ‘gentlemen farmers’.
