A Whakatane farmer has been fined for starving cows to death.

Gareth Wordsworth, 42, was sentenced in the Whakatane District Court on Wednesday after being found guilty of failing to provide the calves with proper and sufficient food and water, and failing to protect the calves from, and rapidly diagnose, any significant injury or disease.

A Whakatane man has been banned from owning livestock for two years. Photo: SPCA.

Charges have been brought against him by the SPCA.

He was sentenced to 100 hours of community work, disqualified from owning livestock animals for two years, and ordered to pay $1371.09 in reparations and $150 in court costs.

Wordsworth admitted under caution he had purchased 33 four- to eight-day-old calves in September 2014.

He sold five and kept the remaining 28, of which 20 had died.

The plight of Wordsworth's calves first came to the attention of the SPCA on November 17, 2014 when an SPCA inspector noticed one dead calf and eight calves in poor condition at a property in Ohaua Road, Tawera, about 27km south of Whakatane, reports Stuff.

On November 18, the inspector returned with two vets to examine the calves. Wordsworth was not home.

All eight live calves had evidence of scours, or livestock diarrhoea, with faeces caked to their tails, and appeared to be on a grass-only diet.

Three of the eight calves were assessed to be very small, emaciated, and weak, were not grazing, and were far too young to be weaned onto grass. The remaining five calves were in better condition, with some rumen development (the part of the digestive tract that enables ruminant animals to digest grass), but were still below weight for weaned calves.

Wordsworth was issued a notice instructing him to give the calves milk by November 19.

Later that day the defendant is believed to have called the inspector and told her he would not be complying with the notice, reports Stuff.

The inspector returned that same day and took possession of the three emaciated calves for urgent veterinary attention.

One of the calves had to be euthanised and the other two died 48 hours later.