A Southland farmer who had 234 of his stock euthanised because of emaciation and fly-strike was yesterday sentenced to nine months' home detention.

Bevan Scott Tait (52) received his sentence by audiovisual link at the Invercargill District Court having earlier pleaded guilty to eight charges under the Animal Welfare Act for serious animal welfare offending.

The Ministry of Primary Industries' animal welfare arm launched an investigation at Tait's Tussock Creek farm following a complaint in 2019.

The complaint led to a series of MPI, farm consultant and veterinarian inspections from April until August that year.

MPI national manager of animal welfare and NAIT compliance Gray Harrison said inspectors found animals in distress and directed Tait to take corrective action including euthanising eight sheep.

"We followed up and found Mr Tait had made some improvements and treated affected sheep for fly-strike," he said.

"However, we received another complaint later that month and executed a search warrant where our inspectors found three dead cows. There was also not enough pasture available to his sheep and no evidence of supplementary feed being provided to them.

A farm consultant was sent to assess stocking rate, stock condition, available feed and nutritional value of feed on farm. Tait was then directed to make improvements to ensure his animals were properly fed and protected from disease.

"At an unannounced follow-up visit, we found Mr Tait did not follow our directions, and action needed to be taken. It was clear Mr Tait was not doing what was needed to look after his animals so we obtained a court order which directed him to de-stock within three days."

After the three days, MPI returned again but Tait had failed to destock.

"We had a vet assess each animal individually and, as a result, 226 sheep and three lambs had to be euthanised.

Harrison said no-one liked seeing animals put down, but it was a necessary action in this situation to alleviate the suffering they were enduring.

Of the rest of his animals, 35 cattle, 387 sheep and about 100 lambs were rehomed.

"It's fair to say that this type of offending is rare. Most farmers do the right thing by their animals and Mr Tait's neglect of his animals was one of the worst we've seen for some time," Harrison said.

He encouraged members of the public who were aware of animal ill-treatment or cruelty to report it to the MPI animal welfare complaints.

Tait was ordered to complete 150 hours of community service on top of the home detention sentence.