A mother and daughter who sold puppies and horses though online buy-and-sell marketplaces like Craigslist and Kijiji have been handed a 20-year ban on owning animals after pleading guilty to animal cruelty charges.

The SPCA says Karin Adams and her daughter Catherine Adams were unscrupulous backyard breeders that kept animals in horrific conditions on their property near Houston, B.C.

In addition to raising horses, the women were breeding and selling a “hodge podge” of dogs, including Chinese crested, German shepherds and small breeds, and would often meet buyers in parking lots or public places, likely to avoid having them visit the filthy property, said the SPCA.

“These are the type of people we’re talking about when we say buyer beware when it comes to buying animals sight unseen on the internet,” said Marcie Moriarty, the BC SPCA’s chief enforcement officer.

“The term puppy mill applies to them -- absolutely.”

In August 2014, constables seized a total of 53 animals from the Adams’ property, including 18 horses, 18 large- and small-breed dogs, two cats and 15 birds. Another 104 fish in filthy tanks were also removed.

The agency said the menagerie was being housed in “deplorable” and overcrowded conditions, often without access to fresh water, or even food.

Several of the horses were so starved they were chewing pieces of wood from a shed wall in order to survive, according to the agency.

The other horses faced a range of medical issues ranging from overgrown hooves and parasites. The birds, including cockatiels, love birds, quail, budgies and a conure, were neglected.

The dogs were no better: many suffered dental issues, lacerations and extreme matting. Many of the canines, which included poodle crosses, two Chinese crested dogs, German shepherds, a Newfoundland-cross, a pit bull, a Maltese cross and a bloodhound cross, were fearful of human contact and completely unsocialized, indicating they had little, if any, human contact while packed into their enclosures.

Catherine Adams pleaded guilty to charges under both the criminal code and provincial animal act Thursday, and was given a six-month conditional house arrest and three years’ probation in addition to the animal ban.

Her mother, Karin, was sentenced to 15-days in jail and two years’ probation. Both women were ordered to pay $5,456 to the SPCA to offset care costs, although the SPCA says that figure doesn’t come close to the bills the agency has paid to rehabilitate and rehome the brood of neglected animals.

The court decision was being anxiously awaited in the community, where residents started a petition asking for the pair to face jail time.

The ban on owning animals is national in scope, something that the SPCA sees as a victory because the women also sold animals in Alberta, said Moriarty.

She hopes the ban will effectively put the breeders, who operated with various aliases, out of business.

The majority of the animals seized from Houston have been adopted into new homes.