Day 090 - 16 Feb 95 - Page 30
1
2 Q. -- in general, right.
3
4 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What are we in here at the moment, do you
5 know? We have had this kind of question before. What do
6 you think as you are giving evidence it is, just a
7 very .....
8 A. To be honest, a light meter is not something I carry as
9 part of my routine examination equipment. I think it is
10 much more sensible to use your common sense.
11
12 Q. You can turn up the dimmer if you feel you need it,
13 presumably?
14 A. Yes, that is right. I honestly could not say what it
15 is in here because you have a combination of natural light,
16 daylight, you have got individual areas where the light
17 intensity is different. Of course, that applies in a
18 poultry house as well. The light is not the same
19 everywhere you go; there are light areas and dark areas,
20 inevitably.
21
22 MS. STEEL: Daylight is between 500 to 5,000 lux depending on
23 sunshine, that is right, is it not?
24 A. If you say so.
25
26 Q. When you said that a typical lighting level is 10 to 20
27 lux, and that you thought that was quite acceptable, is
28 that the average? I mean, are there some that are more
29 than that and some that are less than that or not?
30 A. I would say that is an average figure. There are
31 certainly -- there are none that would be lower than that
32 because we do not find -- there is no advantage in giving
33 birds too little light. You might as well give them as
34 much as you feel they need to keep them active.
35
36 Q. So you feel they need between 10 and 20 to keep them
37 active?
38 A. That is my feeling, yes.
39
40 Q. If you turned it up to 80 or 50, or whatever, would the
41 birds become more active?
42 A. When you turn the lights up you see a general, the
43 general activity increases; birds get up, move around,
44 maybe go to feeders, go to drinkers as a result of that
45 stimulus. If you then just leave it at that level, they
46 just tend to go back to the level of activity they were at
47 before.
48
49 Q. You mentioned yesterday about experiments on light and
50 dark, on the levels of light, to see how it affected leg
51 strength. Perhaps you would like to turn to page 14 of the
52 Farm Animal Welfare Council Report? At paragraph 37 it
53 says: "The available scientific evidence suggests that
54 very dim light can cause welfare problems; and that
55 brighter light can be used to stimulate activity and hence
56 reduce leg problems". You are aware of that, I presume?
57 A. Yes, yes.
58
59 Q. Lower down in paragraph 38 in the underlined section it
60 says: "We therefore recommend that all houses should have
