Day 289 - 29 Oct 96 - Page 20
1 were probably about 40,000 chickens, then he had another
2 shed which we used to call the dreaded Cappers because it
3 was in a loft in a very confined space with probably about
4 twelve to fifteen thousand birds. He said he was not a
5 hundred percent sure of the numbers in the loft. And you
6 had to walk into a very confined space and load the
7 chickens into a chute or throw them into a chute to
8 basically slide down the chute onto a table 20 foot below,
9 where they would then be loaded into modules. And he
10 described it as being like a steel pipe and he said the
11 diameter was about a foot or a foot and a half.
12
13 I asked him about what happened when the birds landed on
14 the table. He said: Well, if you can imagine coming down
15 a chute at 15 or 20 foot after throwing them into the chute
16 the speed that they would hit the table. They would hit
17 the table, some would stay on the table, some would go on
18 the floor, and the people below would pick them off the
19 table and load them into modules.
20
21 I think we heard other evidence about -- I am not sure if
22 it was about Mr. Capper's farm or about another farm, where
23 the conditions seemed particularly bad, and I cannot
24 remember the reference for this, but I do remember Dr.
25 Pattison, and I think it was in answer to your questions,
26 admitting that the conditions were far from satisfactory
27 and basically they had carried on for years and that is far
28 from satisfactory by their standards, and yet they had
29 carried on for years allowing them to continue to be a
30 supplier. Which we would say is obviously not what you
31 would expect from a company which asserts that it has high
32 standards in relation to animal welfare.
33
34 Actually I do not know whether that high standards of
35 animal welfare is something that Sun Valley say about
36 themselves or whether I have got it from -- I do know that
37 it is in the McDonald's policy thing, that they claim to
38 only deal with the companies with the highest standards of
39 animal welfare. (Pause).
40
41 MR. MORRIS: It is in the press release that we counterclaimed
42 against; McDonald's will only deal with suppliers who meet
43 the highest standards of animal welfare.
44
45 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Thank you.
46
47 MS. STEEL: Obviously if that was true, they would have
48 discontinued Sun Valley a long time ago, or perhaps, I do
49 not know, maybe Sun Valley -- maybe the whole industry is
50 all so bad there is not much to choose between them, so the
51 highest standards were meaningless.
52
53 A general point about environment/index.html">litter, the environment/index.html">litter in the sheds.
54 Mr. Bruton describes the environment/index.html">litter in the sheds on day 115,
55 page 41, line 56. He says: In some of the sheds the
56 environment/index.html">litter would be acceptable and in some of the sheds it
57 would be appalling. And he describes particularly the
58 conditions when the birds had gumboro, in which case the
59 ammonia would be terrific, the smell and the stench would
60 be something else.
