Breeder: Blomberg, Bill and Kathie
Business name: Locust Creek Farm
Address: 9405 Mc Casland Rd
City, State Zip: Versailles, MO 65084
Year: 2004
USDA License: 43-A-1116
USDA Inspector: Robert Bacon, ACI
USDA Inspections: 2003-10-08
Date of CAPS Investigation: 2004-10-07
Approximately 180 dogs and two puppies. Breeds: Cairn Terriers, Yorkshire Terriers, Shih Tzus, Chihuahuas
Bill and Kathie Blomberg’s kennel had two different structures containing indoor and outdoor cages and a hog barn which is being used to house Cairn Terriers. The property was on a hill. The access road was at the bottom of the hill, and the Cairn Terrier barn higher on the hill than the Blombergs’ house.
Barn
The barn was about 200 feet long and thirty feet wide. It had sheet-metal sides and roofing and concrete flooring. An open doorway in the middle of the 200 foot-long side of the barn faced the house. This doorway led to a storage room about 15 feet wide and 30 feet long that had open doorways in the left and right walls. The right doorway led to a room in which Kathie Blomberg was using a water hose to spray off the floorings of pens containing Cairn Terriers. Rubber mats with holes covered the pen floor areas.
Each pen was about five feet long and five feet wide. These pens had three-foot-high walls made of metal beams. Each pen contained four to five Cairn Terriers. The dogs in the pen Blomberg was spraying had nowhere to go to avoid getting splashed and wet (3.11(a)-Cleaning of primary enclosures).
Though the lights were on in the room containing the dogs, the dim lighting made it difficult to clearly see into the pens from ten feet away (3.2(c)-Lighting).
Uphill Kennel
Just above the hill from the house was a kennel building about 40 feet long and 15 feet wide. Each of the longer sides had eight cages (four on top of four) on either side of a central doorway. Each set had plastic sheeting below it to catch feces and debris. The plastic sheets had dark fecal stains on them underneath most of the cages (3.1(c)(3)-Surfaces) (3.11(a)-Cleaning of primary enclosures)
Each cage was about two feet wide, two feet long, and two feet high and made with untreated wooden boards at the corners and thin-gauge, untreated wire on the sides and tops (3.6(a)(2)(xii)-Primary enclosures) and treated wire for the floorings. The untreated wooden boards were covered in algae (3.1(c)(2)-Maintenance and replacement of surfaces). Each cage contained one to three dogs of various breeds including Cairn Terriers, Yorkshire Terriers, Chihuahuas, and Shih Tzu. Several of the Yorkshire Terriers had thick mats in their fur (2.40-Vet Care).
Downhill kennel
A building identical in design to the one described above was downhill from the house and within about 15 feet of the driveway accessing the property. Cages housed Shih Tzu, Cairn Terriers, and Yorkshire Terriers in this building and had one to three dogs per cage. One cage contained an adult Shih Tzu with several Shih Tzu puppies of about four weeks of age.
A top cage on the end of the building closest to house and facing downhill housed an adult Cairn Terrier with several mats in its fur as large as four inches wide on the underside of the dog’s neck, chest, and the front of its front legs (2.40-Vet Care).
Several outside cages had shredded pieces of newspaper in them or lying on the ground under them (3.1(b)-Condition and site). The wooden boards used to construct the outside pens of this building were covered in algae (3.1(c)(2)-Maintenance and replacement of surfaces). The plastic sheets underneath the cages were stained from feces (3.1(c)(3)-Cleaning) (3.11(a)-Cleaning of primary enclosures).
