91 pets were living in feces-caked house, court hears
Meghan Grant | CBC News | Posted: March 9, 2016 11:20 PM | Last Updated: March 9, 2016
WARNING: This story contains details of animal neglect that are disturbing
When officers seized 91 animals from a home in Erinwoods, some were missing eyes and they were living in up to a foot-and-a-half of animal feces.
Those were some of the details read aloud to a judge on Wednesday when Christine and Anthony Berry pleaded guilty in a Calgary courtroom to animal abuse charges.
Their "filthy" home was caked in two inches of rabbit feces upstairs and up to a foot-and-a-half in the basement when officers entered the house in August 2014.
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Some of the animals had to be dug out of their cages because they were buried in feces.
In total, 91 animals were seized from the home including 69 rabbits, 20 hamsters, one dog and one cat.
Of those, 42 of the rabbits and five hamsters were in such severe medical distress they had to be euthanized.
The couple pleaded guilty to a charge of allowing animals to be in distress.
Officers who attended the home described an "overwhelming smell of urine and feces."
On a scale of one to five that measures the quality of an environment for animals, the Berry's home rated a five and was considered "filthy."
A sentencing hearing has been booked in June.