An Iowa man has been arrested after authorities say he neglected hundreds of baby pigs and left them to die without decent access to food or water.
Deputies in Black Hawk County, Iowa arrested 38-year-old Nolan Otto Dewall on Monday in a rural part of Cedar Falls, the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier reported.
As the Associated Press reports, the man was hired to raise 2,500 baby pigs until they reached about 280 pounds. In late December a consultant found that 800 of the baby pigs had died, citing poor access to food and water as the cause. Dewall had reportedly been delivered 15 tons of feed with the pigs to feed them.
The Courier also reported that temperatures for freshly weaned hogs should stay at around 80 to 95 degrees for them to survive, yet the barns were found to be at below 50 degrees. A veterinarian who was called in to investigate reportedly found the water dishes to be "bone dry," with some of the feeders empty according to records, as the Courier reported.
Authorities removed the surviving pigs from that farm and took them to another location, but 51 pigs died during the move and another 60 died in the days that followed according to records, the Associated Press reports.
Dewall was charged with one count of livestock neglect, which is a misdemeanor in Iowa, the Courier reported.
