A COUPLE kept more than 120 rabbits in “cramped ” hutches soaked with rabbit droppings and urine, a court has been told.

Dawn and Peter Bundy kept the 126 animals in such small hutches some could not sit up on their hind legs, Southampton Magistrates’ Court was told.

RSPCA and environmental health officers went to the couple’s home in Maplin Road, Millbrook, Southampton, on October 1 last year after neighbours alerted authorities.

Officers spent hours removing 73 specialist dwarf lop, German lop, silver fox and satin rabbits – worth about £3,000 – from the backyard of the house on the advice of vet Kimberly Evans.

Southampton City Council environmental health officer Ralph Walling told the court a large number of insecticide cans had been found at the house but that they carried instructions not to be sprayed around animals.

RSPCA inspector Christine Coleman told the court some of the hutches had not been cleaned for weeks and were full of droppings, adding: “The hutches were very small. Some of the rabbits could not sit upright or stretch the length of the hutch.”

Under cross-examination Miss Evans said the seized rabbits were found to have long claws and were slightly overweight but not unhealthy. She added that 16 of the animals had since died or been destroyed humanely.

Defence counsel Richard Elliot told the court RSPCA officers had visited the Bundys’ house in 2006 but had not taken action.

The couple deny contravening two sections of the Animal Welfare Act.

Proceeding