The country's largest sharemilking company is on trial in the Rotorua District Court facing hundreds of charges of failing to feed and water a large dairy herd.
Dairy farming operation Milk Pride, directors Murray Flett and Ross Cottier, and employees Craig Coote Raymond Griffin collectively face 625 charges.
All five parties have denied the charges.
Milk Pride owned and milked 4000-5000 cows on the central North Island dairy farm under a sharemilking agreement with a Crafar family company.
The charges were laid by the then Ministry of Agriculture following an investigation in October 2009, as part of a wider animal welfare investigation of Crafar farms which had begun shortly before they were put into receivership.
No members of the Crafar family are charged with animal welfare offences.
In the court case, which began on Monday, Crown lawyer Fletcher Pilditch says the accused were responsible for the cows on the Taharua Farm in Rangitaiki near Taupo.
Hundreds of cows had to be put down
Mr Pilditch says in the winter and early spring of 2009, the accused failed to provide food and water, and in some circumstances that failing led to ill-treatment of dairy cows.
The inspectors found a significant number of cows in very poor condition, with some suffering from infections. About 200 were put down.
Mr Pilditch said the accused blamed the cows' poor condition mainly on a snowstorm that hit the area just two days before the inspectors arrived.
Although there's no dispute about the adverse weather, Mr Pilditch said the Crown alleges the animals' condition was already poor because of "chronic and enduring underfeeding and lack of water".
"The cows did not go from being well-fed, healthy cows to the cows that were identified by the ministry in the herd in the space of 48 hours or so because there was snow."
The case is scheduled to run for several weeks.
