A farmer in Horowhenua has been convicted over fatally neglecting calves, for the second time in five years.
Carl Smith from Shannon was sentenced in the Palmerston North District Court to 200 hours of community work, and disqualified from owning farming animals for five years, for recklessly ill-treating calves after one died of starvation and another had to be euthanised.
Smith was convicted on similar charges in 2011.
He was fined $1200, and banned from owning and being in charge of livestock for two years.
SPCA chief executive Ric Odom says its inspector found three bull calves on the farm.
One had died, another was unable to stand, and a third was in a poor condition from not being wormed.
He says the SPCA gave Smith advice on how to care for calves after his first conviction, and it's disappointing that he repeated the same mistakes.