Day 288 - 28 Oct 96 - Page 44
1 getting really tired now.
2
3 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Take a minute or two's break and then try and
4 carry on for a bit longer.
5
6 MS. STEEL: Thanks.
7
8 MR JUSTICE BELL: I have no objection to you, if you get tired,
9 sitting down and carrying on addressing me sitting down.
10 But if you do that, just do your best to keep your voice
11 up. (Pause)
12
13 MS. STEEL: The Farm Animal Welfare Council report on the
14 welfare of broiler chickens talks about the inspection of
15 the stock. It is on page 18 of the report. It says in
16 there that the council accepts that:
17
18 "...it is not possible for the stockman to look after each
19 bird individually during routine inspection, but a good
20 indication of flock health should be gained. The stockman
21 should pass close enough to all the birds for him to see
22 them clearly and for the birds to be disturbed and move
23 away from him. This should enable him to identify the
24 majority of the chronically sick, weak and dead birds which
25 should all be removed from the flock. We recommend that
26 during inspection the lighting level is sufficient to
27 ensure that all the birds are clearly visible and
28 encouraged to move. This level will need to be
29 considerably higher than the 20 lux suggested in
30 paragraph 38 as suitable light intensity is likely to be
31 around 200 lux."
32
33 They then make the actual recommendation that the
34 inspection should be carried out twice a day and the
35 stockman should go within three metres of every bird.
36
37 The first thing is, obviously -- I mentioned the point
38 earlier -- that despite the fact that the lighting at
39 Sun Valley can be turned up to 200 lux, Dr. Patteson said
40 the routine inspections were done at 20 lux, which the
41 committee does not consider to be acceptable.
42
43 On top of that, the number of birds that an individual
44 stockperson has to inspect is just incredible. There is no
45 way that the stockperson could possibly do a thorough
46 check, or anything near a thorough check, on the health of
47 the birds in the broiler sheds.
48
49 Dr. Patteson said that the number of units per farm varies;
50 the ideal number would be five or six. He said that the
51 biggest one has 13 units and the smallest has one. That
52 was all on day 90, page 8, line 5. He said -- and these
53 are units of 20,000 to 25,000 birds -- and he said that for
54 a typical size farm with five units on, the staff would be
55 three people; for a 13 unit farm, perhaps five people.
56
57 "The farm managers on all our sites live on site, so they
58 are on call 24 hours a day. The normal system is to have a
59 manager, assistant manager and then a poultryman or maybe
60 two or three poultrymen, according to size of the farm.
