Day 095 - 02 Mar 95 - Page 42
1 Mr. Morris and not Mr. Rampton is that Mr. Rampton is well
2 aware of the steps he can take and he will make his own
3 decision to advise his clients whether to take them or
4 not. All I am doing is making it clear to you that I am
5 not satisfied I have got to the bottom of just what the
6 printouts mean. If you want me to feel confident I have
7 got to the bottom of them, I think you should make some
8 further enquiry.
9
10 MR. MORRIS: In the US you get steer cattle or you use products
11 which originated from steer cattle, most of them come from
12 feed lots, do they, as far as you know?
13 A. OK. The life of a steer starts in a farm. It goes
14 through a period of 18 to 24 months in the open range. It
15 goes to a feed lot for about 100 days and then it goes to
16 an abattoir.
17
18 Q. Most of the cattle will have been at a feed lot for some
19 time at the end of their lives?
20 A. The steer?
21
22 Q. I am just trying to see if it is 10 per cent of your cattle
23 come from feed lots or 90 per cent.
24
25 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Can you give a proportion, what I think you
26 sometimes call a ball park figure?
27
28 MR. MORRIS: Not counting old dairy cows.
29
30 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Forget the cows, but steers who have been on
31 a feed lot for a significant number of days before
32 slaughter, can you say what proportion of the population of
33 steers will have been?
34 A. Let me see. The proportion, that is difficult to
35 answer. The proportion of cattle that we use that comes
36 from a feed lot, very, very small. We are not the driver
37 of the feed lots by any means.
38
39 MR. MORRIS: No. I understand.
40 A. The drivers of the feed lots are the retail stores that
41 sell the primal cuts.
42
43 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes, you said that before.
44
45 MR. MORRIS: You said that in the feed lots they get well fed?
46 A. Yes.
47
48 Q. But you do not use that so much as cattle that have not
49 gone to feed lots?
50 A. We use a lot more of cattle that does not go to feed
51 lots.
52
53 Q. Because the better quality cattle go to the feed lots?
54 A. No. The cattle will be going there except that we
55 cannot afford to pay the prices of the cuts, nor do we need
56 them because those cuts, it is only very limited pounds of
57 a product that we can use from an animal that goes to a
58 feed lot. The majority of the product comes from non-feed
59 lots.
60
