Day 111 - 30 Mar 95 - Page 58


     
     1
     2        You can usually find out where the animal has come from,
     3        either the auctioneer or the last farm that it has come
     4        from.  A lot of culled cows do come through mediators who
     5        buy a lot of culled cows from farms, then they sell them in
     6        batches to auctioneers at the cattle markets and the
     7        auctioneers sell them to slaughterhouses.
     8
     9        Basically, the only additional information you can get is
    10        the official ear tag that the animal carries.  This is a
    11        small metal tag that is attached to the animal's ear at
    12        birth and should follow the animal throughout its life.  In
    13        many cases, it does not and the animal is re-numbered
    14        during its life on another farm.
    15
    16        It is generally acknowledged in this country that
    17        traceability is very poor.  That is why there are very few
    18        epidemic surveys, for example, done at the abattoirs
    19        post-mortem, on the basis of post-mortem findings which is
    20        quite common in countries where the traceability is better.
    21
    22   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  If an animal is re-tagged, does it have a
    23        date of the tagging on the tag?
    24        A.  No.  It only has a running number and the owner's herd
    25        number on that tag, so if the owner has changed, the herd
    26        number has changed as well and the origin of the animal is
    27        lost.
    28
    29   MR. MORRIS:  During the slaughter of the animal, the deboning
    30        and all that, what happens to the tag number?  What happens
    31        to it if it is on it?
    32        A.  It is used to identify the owner if it is a direct sale
    33        from the farm and the farmer gives that as the
    34        identification number.  Normally in cattle markets cattle
    35        are re-tagged with a shorter ear number, like I saw in some
    36        of the documents that Jarrett has handed over, there were
    37        ear numbers on steers.  Those were short, plastic tag ear
    38        numbers that are used usually by the marketeers.  They are
    39        easily read.  These small metal tags are very small, they
    40        are about the length my forefinger and the numbers are
    41        printed in the metal.  You have to catch the animal, hold
    42        its ear still and read the number from both sides; the herd
    43        number is on the inside and the running number is on the
    44        outside.  The auctioneers like to use these big plastic
    45        tags that you can read the animal's ear number from a
    46        distance.
    47
    48   Q.   So if an animal comes from a market into Jarretts, is it
    49        true that the only information you would know about that
    50        animal is which market it came from? 
    51        A.  Which auctioneer and market, yes.  Then it would 
    52        probably be possible on the basis of paperwork from the 
    53        auctioneer to trace back to the person who sold the animal.
    54
    55   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  You would find who had put it into auction?
    56        A.  Yes.
    57
    58   MR. MORRIS:  But Jarretts would not know that information?
    59        A.  They could find it out, if they wanted to.
    60

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