Day 090 - 16 Feb 95 - Page 29
1 reflects that there is a great difficulty in actually
2 stating what is ideal.
3
4 Q. What records do you keep in the farms about the checking
5 for the welfare of the birds?
6 A. The standard record that we would have on the inside of
7 a poultry house would be the number of birds placed at
8 day-old, the temperatures, maximum and minimum temperature,
9 within the house, the mortality, the number of birds
10 culled, and then notes of water consumption and then other
11 notes of just things like feed deliveries and vaccinations.
12
13 Q. Have all those things been routinely recorded for the last
14 10 years?
15 A. They have always been done. Water consumption is,
16 perhaps, the only new one that became -- once we had
17 reliable water meters we started doing that as routine
18 probably about six or seven years ago.
19
20 Q. On page 18 of this report on the welfare of broiler
21 chickens, paragraph 48 it says that "a suitable light
22 intensity for inspecting the chickens is likely to be about
23 200 lux". Are all the farms that are part of the Sun
24 Valley process able to provide that level of lighting?
25 A. The standard level, as I said yesterday, in broiler
26 houses is about 10 to 20 lux which is quite adequate for
27 normal bird activity. We can put the lights up on to
28 higher intensities if we wish, although I cannot see any
29 reference to 200 lux.
30
31 Q. At the end of the paragraph.
32 A. Oh, I see, yes.
33
34 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Can I just look back at 38?
35 A. So, really, what I am saying is there is no problem in
36 complying with that at all.
37
38 MS. STEEL: All your farms would be able to comply with that,
39 would they?
40 A. That is correct.
41
42 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What, the 200 for inspection?
43 A. Yes, that is available if we need it.
44
45 MS. STEEL: Is that standard practice that the lights would be
46 turned up to 200 lux while the inspections are made?
47 A. It depends what type of inspection. If you are
48 routinely walking the shed you do not need to have the
49 lights as bright as that to be able to do that. 200 is
50 very bright. If you were requiring to do more detailed
51 work, say, working on feeders, repairing drinkers,
52 whatever, then you would need that higher level.
53
54 Q. So what light level would be used for the routine
55 inspections?
56 A. Routine inspections can be done quite satisfactorily at
57 20 lux.
58
59 Q. And that would be the standard used ---
60 A. Yes.
