On Sunday March 31, our Refuge du Marais team went to Rebecq with the associations Animaux en Péril, Help Animals, le Rêve d’Aby and Opale, at the request of the police, to take charge of around 100 animals held in miserable conditions.
Initially, walkers noticed goats, rabbits, hens, geese, ducks and birds held in tiny cages or bathing in pools of mud. The alarm was raised with the local Rebecq police, who went to the scene. In view of the seriousness of the situation, they decided to confiscate the animals.
Several hours to save all the survivors
As soon as they entered the house, the associations noticed around fifty birds (parakeets, exotic birds, canaries, cockatoos), around fifty farmyard animals (hens, roosters, guinea fowl, geese, ducks), four rabbits and two goats, which were kept in damp conditions and no longer had any grass to eat.
Chickens and roosters cooped up with their heads bent in small cages
Goats, geese and ducks move around in the mud, while several hens and roosters are kept in cages where they have no room to move. Four rabbits are also on site. They live on a thick layer of dung, locked in shelters that also balance on the muddy ground.
The hens, roosters and geese are very thin. Several hens are immediately isolated from the group due to alarming apathy. Locked up for too long, they wobble on their feet and have difficulty regaining a proper gait.
Prolonged exposure of animals to humidity also has serious consequences for their limbs. The legs of some hens and roosters are eaten away, and the wings of geese and ducks are almost completely devoid of feathers.
For the rabbits, mange has invaded their ears right down to the ear canal. The pain is such that they have no choice but to live with their heads tilted to one side. At the bottom of a dilapidated, droppery cage, a rooster seems unable to move. A closer look reveals heavy bracelets around the animal’s legs. The rooster’s droppings had accumulated around his limbs, preventing him from standing up. Several hours of leg baths are needed to free the animal from its heavy handcuffs…
Eye infections also affect many individuals in the group, due to prolonged exposure to droppings and other bacteria.
After an emergency veterinary visit, the shelter teams discovered that the animals were suffering from a serious infestation of lice, with numerous scratching sores covering the bodies of some hens.
By late afternoon on Sunday, the animals were settled in the four shelters that had answered the authorities’ call: Animaux en Péril, Le Rêve d’Aby, Help Animals and Veeweyde refuge du Marais.
Under a barrage of insults directed at the shelter’s carers and volunteers, the torturer gave up all his animals, allowing the associations to take ownership of them.
Un procès-verbal a été dressé pour actes de maltraitance et les associations s’accordent pour poursuivre le maltraitant en raison de la gravité des faits.