A former mayor and her daughter have been banned from owning animals after they kept almost 70 pets in squalid conditions at their home.
Pamela Ann Crisp-Beard, 63, and her daughter Maria, 24, kept a menagerie at their cramped semi-detached property in Horncastle, Lincolnshire.
Their pets included 15 rabbits, a golden pheasant, two guinea pigs, five mice, two rats, a cat, two dogs, four domestic ducks, a goose and 22 chickens, a parrot and two ferrets.
Neighbours contacted the RSPCA in January last year over concerns about the animals and officers discovered they were living in appalling conditions.
Their home was in such a state that welfare officers said it was ‘knee-deep’ in faeces. The duo were found guilty of six animal welfare charges at Skegness Magistrates' Court in December last year.
On Tuesday they were banned from keeping animals for life and given an 18-month conditional discharge at the same court.
Pamela Crisp-Beard - who was Mayor of Horncastle between May 1997 and May 1998 - was also ordered to pay £10,000 towards the costs of the RSPCA prosecution.
Magistrates said they took into account that the offences were caused by ‘neglect rather than downright cruelty’ after the pair told the court they loved their pets.
Pamela Crisp-Beard, who also served as a councillor between 2003 and 2011, told the court: "We love our animals. We always have done. All we have tried to do is look after them."
The court heard the pair kept some of their animals indoors, including in a bedroom, at their home, while others were left in the back garden.
RSPCA inspector Deborah Scotcher told the court when she visited the house her feet squelched on the hall carpets because they were sodden with urine.
