Every person who cruelly overdrives, overloads, drives when overloaded, overworks, tortures, torments, deprives of necessary sustenance, cruelly beats, mutilates or cruelly kills, or causes, procures, authorizes, requests or encourages so to be overdriven, overloaded, driven when overloaded, overworked, tortured, tormented, deprived of necessary sustenance, cruelly beaten or mutilated or cruelly killed, any animal; and whoever having the charge or custody of any animal, either as owner or otherwise, inflicts unnecessary suffering or pain upon the same, or unnecessarily fails to provide the same with the proper food, drink, air, light, space, shelter or protection from the weather, or who wilfully and unreasonably drives the same when unfit for labor or with yoke or harness that chafes or galls it, or checks rein or any part of its harness too tight for its comfort, or at night when it has been six consecutive hours without a full meal, or who cruelly abandons any animal, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor. For the purposes of this section, “necessary sustenance” or “proper food” means the provision at suitable intervals not to exceed 24 hours, of wholesome foodstuff suitable for the species and age of the animal and sufficient to provide a reasonable level of nutrition for the animal.