Breeder: Stoltzfus, Amos
City, State Zip: Lititz, PA 17543
Year: 2005
USDA License: 23-A-0221
Date of CAPS Investigation: 2005-02-24
Note: Ph: 717-665-7579
First barn
The newer barn had a metal door and windows about two feet wide and a foot high, which were spaced about every 20 feet on the walls. There was no artificial lighting or heating in the barn.
In this barn were three rows of 15 cages, one row against each of the longer walls of the barn and a third row of cages in between and parallel to them.
The cages in the middle row were about two feet wide, five feet long, and two feet high. They had painted wooden beams and walls, roof. The flooring was treated, thin-gauge wire. The cages were about three feet above the ground on wooden stilts.
The other cages were constructed in a similar manner but included wooden dog houses about two feet in all dimensions. They were accessible by a doggie-door with plastic frame and a wooden roof that could be flipped open on hinges. The wall of each dog house that faced the cage itself was chewed and scratched.
All of the cages had PVC piping connected to lix-it style water spigots and plastic self-feeders positioned a few inches above the cage floor. Each self-feeder was about four inches wide, three inches deep, and eight inches high and was filled to within one to three inches of the top with food, more than a day’s supply of food for the dogs housed in each cage (3.9(a)-Feeding).
Below each cage was a think layer of wood chips on the concrete flooring. Against the same wall as the door of the barn were dog food bags stacked about eight feet high.
One cage housed a single adult Bichon with shaved fur, sitting in the wooden box at the back of its cage and shaking slightly. It exhibited a cherry eye condition in both eyes and stitches on the left side of its face. Dried blood spotted the fur below its eyes (2.40-Vet Care).
Another cage contained seven adult Yorkshire Terriers and Bichons, each weighing about four to five pounds (3.6(c)(1)(i)-Primary enclosures).
Several cages housed puppies, less than eight-weeks-old, that could crawl out of the whelping boxes onto the wire flooring with open spaces larger than their feet (3.6(a)(2)(x)-Primary enclosures. One of these cages housed several Cocker Spaniels about four-weeks-old and an adult whelping Cocker Spaniel with feces-encrusted mats around her rear end and tail (2.40-Vet care).
The center-row cage closest to the kennel doorway had four plastic bottles on top of it. Two were syrup bottles, a third was a spray bottle with red liquid, and the fourth was a spray bottle with blue liquid (3.1(b)-Condition and site).
Second barn
The second barn was accessed through a sliding wooden door. There was a strong ammonia odor in this barn and no ventilation system was evident other than windows, which were all closed (3.2(b)-Ventilation).
Inside were three rows of 20 cages arranged in the same manner as cages in the first barn. All were raised about three feet above the ground on wooden stilts, attached to the barn ceiling by metal chains, and framed with painted wooden beams. Some cages were about two feet wide, three feet long, and three feet high. Other cages measured about four feet wide, four feet long, and three feet high. The cages had plastic self-feeders and lix-it water spigots fed by PVC pipe.
One row against the barn wall consisted of only smaller cages. The other two rows consisted of about half small cages and half larger cages. Each cage contained one to four dogs, of various breeds, each weighing between two to eight pounds.
There was more than 24 hours’ accumulation of feces, mixed with sawdust, below the cages (3.11(a)-Cleaning of primary enclosures).
Many of the smaller cages housed one or two dogs each weighing five to six pounds (3.6(c)(1)(i)-Primary enclosures). One of these cages, near the corner of the building close to the sliding doorway and housing two Yorkshire Terriers, had a gallon bottle filled with a brown liquid on top of it (3.1(b)-Condition and site).
There were thick cobwebs on the cage roofs and walls and hanging from the wire floorings of the cages, and thick layers of dust had collected on all surfaces inside the kennel (3.1(c)(3)-Cleaning). Fur and feces hung in strands and clumps underneath the cages (3.11(a)-Cleaning of primary enclosures).
One of the cages in the center row, housing three adult Cairn Terriers, had flooring that was torn away about a foot from each side of the frame corner. Jagged pieces of wire protruded up to four inches from the frame (3.6(a)(2)(i)-Primary enclosures).
A larger cage against the barn wall housed a single Yorkshire Terrier weighing about two pounds. There were sharp points of the wire flooring protruding along the entire three-foot length of this cage (3.6(a)(2)(i)-Primary enclosures).
Download attachments:StoltzfusAmos.pdf
