A former Carlton player has copped a $75,000 fine and been banned from owning cattle for 10 years after pleading guilty to 72 charges of animal cruelty and neglect.

Joe Dare was recruited as a rookie by the Blues ahead of the 2010 season, but was delisted at the end of 2011 without featuring in an AFL game.

He is now 33 years old and on Monday he pleaded guilty to the cruelty offences in Colac Magistrates Court, which heard sickening details of the dairy farmer’s treatment of his cattle on his Dreeite property.

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Agriculture Victoria officers visited Dare’s farm several times between July 2022 and January 2024, and the court heard horrific accounts of what they saw.

Prosecutor Scott Ward said the officers saw cows, calves and bulls either dead or diseased or emaciated.

“Some cows (were) considered walking skeletons and still had calves suckling from them,” Ward said.

There was also a report of a black heifer that had been shot in the head was still alive, because Dare’s euthanasia attempt had “failed”.

With 170 animals found dead and another 45 in need of euthanasia, Magistrate Franz Holzer called the former footballer’s property an “animal killing fields”.

“He got animals that were unwell and then neglected them even further … that’s just shameful, shameful,” Holzer said.

“I’ve been doing this job for a long time, including in regional Victoria, and this is one of the worst examples of animal neglect and cruelty that I have seen.”

Holzer said he did not understand how Dare had so badly failed in his duty of care to the animals.

“It’s such a significant departure of the standards expected,” he said.

But barrister Gregory Lascaris told the court that it all became “too much” for Dare after a “perfect storm” hit his client.

Lascaris said Dare had been challenged by an injury in a truck crash, weather issues, and a decline in livestock prices.

But he said Dare accepted responsibility for the crimes.

Agriculture Victoria’s animal health and welfare compliance manager Daniel Bode said the accused had “demonstrated he was not a fit and proper person to care for cattle” and the order would hopefully go about preventing any “further cruelty”.

“There’s nothing more confronting than having to see this sort of stuff repeated,” Bode said.

“The result today gives a level of comfort to our staff that this person will not be responsible for any further cruelty in the preceding 10 years.”