Day 107 - 24 Mar 95 - Page 57
1
2 Q. Can we take a live chicken. You say, as you were told by
3 Dr. Pattison, you were pleased with him I think that he had
4 managed to reduce the incidence of salmonella in his live
5 chickens to 1 per cent of the flock?
6 A. Less than 1 per cent.
7
8 Q. Are you saying that is a generalality?
9 A. Some flocks have got problems and some breed of flocks
10 have problems where you get quite high levels, but if you
11 take the industry good flock you are definitely getting
12 well below 1 per cent.
13
14 Q. Then slaughter those chickens?
15 A. Yes.
16
17 Q. And dismember them?
18 A. Yes.
19
20 Q. Do not bulk or batch the bits.
21 A. Yes.
22
23 Q. Take a leg, a drum stick?
24 A. Yes.
25
26 Q. Or a drum stick with a sign on it. Suppose that that is
27 more salmonella on it than the 1 per cent you would expect?
28 A. The proportion contaminated now is, we are now in 25
29 per cent territory.
30
31 Q. Where is that coming from at that stage before bulking,
32 before processing?
33 A. Clearly it is being shared from the other chickens.
34
35 Q. When they are still alive?
36 A. Partly and partly through the processing.
37
38 Q. Well, we must be careful with the word "processing".
39
40 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I have been left behind. When they are still
41 alive I would have thought cannot be so, because the
42 1 per cent is when they are still alive.
43
44 MR. RAMPTON: That is 1 per cent in the gut, my Lord.
45 I understand the witness to be saying, this is what
46 I understood from earlier evidence, that you can get an
47 external infestation?
48 A. The usage, to help your terminology, is one tends to
49 say in the live bird it is an infection and once the thing
50 is dead it is contamination. I wrote a long treaty about
51 the meaning of the two words and one has to be fairly
52 arbitrary.
53
54 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I think where I got left behind was I was
55 still in the gut.
56 A. I think I can explain that as well.
57
58 MR. RAMPTON: Yes, would you please?
59 A. The live testing will be taken on the flock in situ in
60 the broiler sheds. Now there is some sharing once the
