Day 289 - 29 Oct 96 - Page 17


     
     1        click that the chicken had its head out of the drawer
     2        because they were rushing around trying to load the
     3        chickens far too fast.
     4
     5        He did say, because we heard some evidence from
     6        Mr. Pattison, that they tried to stop the chickens' heads
     7        being shut in the drawers.  Mr. Bruton said, when I asked
     8        him about whether or not any of the supervisors or company
     9        officials had said anything about the heads getting
    10        trapped, that sometimes they did come and say that the
    11        heads had been trapped and the catchers would say that they
    12        knew it was a problem, and that they said to the
    13        supervisors, 'If you gave us more time to do the work we
    14        could carry it out in a better and safer order' and that
    15        the problem would not happen.
    16
    17        Basically, they were never given more time to do it.
    18        Despite the fact that the company was complaining about
    19        their heads getting shut in the drawers, they were not
    20        prepared to provide the workers with the necessary amount
    21        of time to prevent it happening.
    22
    23        With reference to this point, Dr. Gregory, you may
    24        remember, carried out a study on 'dead on arrivals' at
    25        slaughter plants, which included the Sun Valley slaughter
    26        plant, and referring to the study of the injuries inflicted
    27        on birds during the catching and loading, Dr. Gregory
    28        stated, "It is not humane for those birds to get obvious
    29        damage like this.  I think it is highly likely that those
    30        birds experience pain, if not a profound sense of shock.
    31        So I think one can safely say it is definitely inhumane for
    32        those."  That was on day 19, page 61, line 16.  He also
    33        said that the level of 'dead on arrivals' was not the end
    34        of the story, because other birds would have suffered
    35        injuries.  That was on the same page at line 6.
    36
    37        Dr. Gregory, in fact, stated that he had made criticisms of
    38        the design of the transport module crates, suggesting
    39        that...  I think it was that there could be a lip on them,
    40        or something, or that the lip should be modified so that
    41        the heads would not get shut in the drawers if the crates
    42        were shut.  He said that he had referred his criticisms of
    43        the transport modules to the manufacturers and designers of
    44        the module system.  The reference for that is day 18, page
    45        20, line 2.  And basically nothing had come of it.
    46
    47        We would say that both the fact that Sun Valley were not
    48        prepared to give the catchers more time to catch the birds
    49        in a more humane manner and that they were not doing
    50        anything about getting a new module system which took 
    51        Dr. Gregory's criticisms into account, shows that they 
    52        basically have got a callous disregard for the welfare of 
    53        the birds, they were prepared to let the suffering go on
    54        rather than increase their costs by introducing new methods
    55        or employing more people.  Obviously increasing their costs
    56        would decrease their profits.  So it is all down to profit
    57        again.
    58
    59        As well as the evidence from Mr. Bruton about the number of
    60        birds carried in one hand, because I think it was suggested

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