Day 092 - 27 Feb 95 - Page 61
1 important, your 20,000 square feet, is that because you
2 know that that is the area of a typical shed holding 22,000
3 birds, or have you done some arithmetic from what you take
4 the dimensions of the shed to be about which you might be
5 mistaken, it seems to me, in order to get the sum? Tell me
6 where you got your 20,000 square feet from?
7 A. I estimate a total, what is the length and what is the
8 width, so I calculate it just to square feet.
9
10 Q. From pacing it out yourself?
11 A. Yes. No, sorry. When I got those figures I wanted to
12 see the average and I wanted to see the one that I was
13 looking at. They told me this would be an average. They
14 told me the dimensions and I just calculated the square
15 feet.
16
17 Q. That came out, you say, at 20,000?
18 A. That is correct.
19
20 Q. There is no legislation. There is not a code of practice
21 which gives maximum stocking density?
22 A. Yes.
23
24 Q. It does not sound so far as if people have in mind a
25 particular number of kilos per square metre as a useful
26 guide. Is that fair or not?
27 A. OK. What is the driver is there are no stocking
28 densities or no laws and regulations. I have a simple
29 explanation or rule that I must go by. Every time there is
30 a law it is because probably they deserve it. Every time
31 there is a regulation in any industry it is because they
32 deserve it. The US has taken the approach that normal
33 business practices will take care of that. If a farmer
34 over-stocks he is going to lose money. If he loses money
35 he is not going to be in the business. It is such a small
36 margin of profit that if it happens it happens very fast.
37
38 Q. I understand all that, but who lays down the size of the
39 shed? Are you saying Tysons and Cargill worked out that in
40 order to get 22,000 birds as healthily as possible to
41 slaughter, they need a shed this size; or they start off
42 with sheds which tend to be of a certain size and they have
43 gradually worked out that they can best from a commercial
44 point of view put 22,000 birds into that size of shed?
45 A. OK.
46
47 Q. They are not working out 36s or 35s or 37s. They have a
48 shed of a certain size and so many thousand birds they can
49 successfully rear in it. Is that the approach?
50 A. OK. There has been a lot of research into that. A lot
51 of the companies who manufacture the sheds, it is pretty
52 much standard dimensions; they vary very little. So it is
53 known through a lot of work and research that those are the
54 optimum sizes and dimensions. They also work along with the
55 location of the houses. It is common practices from the
56 farmers, they know how many birds they can put. They know
57 if they over-stock they are going to lose money.
58
59 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Thank you.
60
