Welfare Check Yields 142 Cats and 164 Birds, Including Peacocks, Living in Florida Woman’s Mobile Home

A welfare check at a Florida mobile home last week yielded hundreds of animals living in squalor, police say.

The Polk County Sheriff’s Office is conducting an investigation into animal cruelty after finding 142 cats, 3 dogs, and 164 birds inside a mobile home belonging to an elderly woman and her daughter. 

The home, located in Frostproof, Florida, about 65 miles south of Orlando, belongs to a 75-year-old woman and her 48-year-old daughter, who lives with her. 

The Polk County Sheriff’s Office in a news release characterized the incident as a “hoarder situation.” 

When deputies arrived at the scene on Thursday in response to a call for a welfare check, they smelled ammonia coming from inside the home. 

When a sheriff’s deputy entered the property, they “observed numerous wire cages that contained approximately 75 chickens, peacocks, and ducks,” according to the press release. “Some of these animals appeared to be malnourished and sick.”

There were also about 50 cats running around the home, the release said, and there was “an overwhelming ammonia odor” inside, as well as “dried feces on the floors and wells.”

In addition to the cats, dogs, and chickens inside, deputies also found a peacock in a wire kennel. Deputies reported seeing dirty water in the pen containers and feces at the bottom of the wire cages where some of the animals were held. 

“It appeared the cages had not been cleaned for an extended period of time,” the release says. 

And the strong ammonia odor was not healthy to breathe in for the two women living there or the animals, deputies said. 

“Five cats were found to have severe eye/nasal discharge and respiratory issues, which are common signs of cats that have been exposed to high levels of ammonia for an extended period of time,” according to the release. “The investigation determined there was a lack of clean exchange of air that has caused severe and repeated infliction of pain and suffering in at least five cats inside the residence.”

The daughter “neglected to provided the legal obligations to care and support her animals,” the release says. She was arrested on five counts of felony animal cruelty and 304 counts of animal neglect, as well as one count of elder neglect. 

All animals were removed from the mobile home and transferred into the care of animal control, where they will receive medical attention.