TWO brothers have pleaded guilty to starving more than one million chickens in an animal cruelty case that has stunned authorities.
Veteran chicken farmers Gerry and Chris Apostolatos stopped feeding birds across their six Victorian sites after their business fell on hard times.
More than 86,000 of the chickens starved to death while the rest suffered a string of starvation-related problems.
After they were reported to authorities shocked animal health officers found some of the birds had turned to eating each other to try and survive.
Others showed signs of obvious distress, feather loss, lameness, weight loss and coccidiosis (parasitic disease).
The brothers today pleaded guilty at the Melbourne Magistrates Court to animal cruelty charges.
Prosecutor George Georgiou SC said it was one of the worst animal cruelty cases to come before the court.
He said the brothers had been directors of Tip Top Livestock since 1987, and should have known better.
Mr Georgiou said it was common industry knowledge and practice that broiler chickens needed to be fed daily but said some were going more than 24 hours without food.
The chicken farmers bought day-old chicks, grew them to maturity before slaughtering them for human consumption.
At the peak of their business they were slaughtering 180,000 birds a week, and spending up to $750,000 a week on feed.
But they hit hard times in December 2011 when their processing plant was shutdown because of hygiene concerns.
Unable to slaughter chickens their feed bill grew to $1 million a week and they couldn’t keep up.
Gerry Apostolatos assured farmers across his six sites that he that he would “sort it out” but the company’s debt spiralled out of control and feed suppliers refused to deal with them.
The factory was eventually allowed to reopen on a restricted basis but the company couldn’t be saved.
The court heard had the Apostolatoses advised the Department of Environment and Primary Industries that they couldn’t provide sufficient feed, the department would have assumed responsibility for feeding the birds.
One of Tip Top’s contract growers reported allegations of animal cruelty to the department in February 2012.
The department seized the chickens and the company was forced into liquidation.
Gerry Apostolatos was later declared bankrupt.
Lawyers for the brothers said the case involved no malicious or deliberate torturing of animals.
They said it was instead a sad case of neglect because of difficult financial issues and they had hoped the company could survive.
Prosecutors have not called for a jail term, but said it was serious enough to warrant one.
The men will be sentenced at a later date.
