Day 090 - 16 Feb 95 - Page 49
1 A. The investigation was quite protracted and I should
2 think it probably took a year by the time we had got all
3 the different possible ingredients sorted out. We are
4 talking about probably around 1987, something like that.
5
6 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What, when you got it sorted out?
7 A. Yes.
8
9 MS. STEEL: What about in terms of the problem that led to you
10 adding the barley enzymes?
11 A. Well, that was the beneficial effect on environment/index.html">litter was
12 actually a totally incidental thing. It was recognised
13 that barley could be used in poultry diets if enzymes were
14 added, so that was new technology. The beneficial effect
15 of that on environment/index.html">litter was only realised subsequently.
16
17 Q. But things like capping still occurred after the 1987
18 change over and then there was an improvement again with
19 the barley?
20 A. That is correct. You have to realise also that there
21 are other causes of capping. I mean, capping is a result
22 of excess moisture in the environment/index.html">litter. It can also happen if
23 you get an outbreak of Gumboro disease, where you get
24 diarrhoea and for a short period you get birds with
25 excessively wet droppings, so you will get capping in
26 certain areas.
27
28 Q. That Gumboro disease is something that has broken out on a
29 massive scale within the last few years, has it not?
30 A. Yes, it first came into the country in 1989 and it was
31 not until about 1992 that it was really brought under
32 control. So, it was a very severe epidemic.
33
34 MR. JUSTICE BELL: How do you spell that?
35 A. G-U-M-B-O-R-O.
36
37 MS. STEEL: That also affected, well, that affected Sun Valley
38 as well?
39 A. Yes, we were equally affected as the rest of the
40 industry.
41
42 Q. What kinds of numbers were involved?
43 A. The mortality in Sun Valley at the height of the
44 outbreak meant we were losing two and a half per cent of
45 all our birds every week.
46
47 Q. When was that then, the height of the outbreak?
48 A. The height of the outbreak was from 1989 to about
49 1991. We had to press the Ministry very hard to license
50 vaccines which were available in Europe to allow the
51 importation of these vaccines into the UK to allow us to
52 control this disease.
53
54 Q. The mortality, was that because you had to cull the birds
55 or were they dying?
56 A. No, they die. It is a very acute disease. They die
57 very quickly.
58
59 Q. Within what space of time?
60 A. Well, affected birds seem to die within about six
