Day 089 - 15 Feb 95 - Page 24
1 called splayed legs where, if birds are badly handled, the
2 legs spread out and ultimately it can lead to a lame bird,
3 so the handling practices in the hatchery are very
4 important.
5
6 Q. What about, for example, treatment with medicines and
7 antibiotics?
8 A. For infectious causes of leg problems, there are, it
9 can sometimes be effective to use antibiotic treatment, and
10 for the first week of life we now use an antibiotic which
11 is given in the feed which greatly reduces infectious
12 causes of leg problems, and this has been referred to,
13 I believe, by Neville Gregory.
14
15 Q. Yes, it was but I did not want, as it were, to lead you
16 through his evidence. It seemed to me it is probably
17 better if it comes from you. How long has that been going
18 on for, that treatment, is it routine?
19 A. It is a routine treatment. It has been going on for,
20 I suppose, about 18 months now.
21
22 Q. Has it had a noticeable effect?
23 A. It has had a very dramatic effect. The use of
24 antibiotics has always got to be done with care. You can
25 generally only use antibiotics for a certain length of time
26 before bacteria will build up resistance to that antibiotic
27 and you have to change it. So, we do from time to time
28 change the type of antibiotic that we, and this will
29 greatly improve the effectiveness of the antibiotic if
30 changes are made from time to time.
31
32 Q. Have you been able to work out how often the change needs
33 to be made?
34 A. We would make a change every six to nine months.
35
36 Q. Whose idea was it to start using this kind of system to
37 reduce or prevent leg disease caused by infection?
38 A. Well, this particular treatment was my own idea and
39 I believe I was the first in the industry to use this.
40
41 Q. Have you been imitated?
42 A. Yes, it has been tried elsewhere and different
43 variations on that type of treatment have been tried and,
44 I believe, with some success.
45
46 Q. Is it right that a proportion of the chicks which are
47 hatched are for one reason or another disposed of before
48 they get transported?
49 A. A very small number of chicks, if they are second
50 grade, or they have got some sort of infection or some sort
51 of abnormality, do have to be disposed of at the hatchery.
52 This is done humanely using -----
53
54 Q. I am coming to the method in a minute. I would like, first
55 of all, if I may, to have a rough idea of the numbers. You
56 say on an average day there might be 200,000 hatched,
57 200,000 altogether?
58 A. Yes.
59
60 Q. Of that 200,000, roughly speaking, on an average day, how
