Day 089 - 15 Feb 95 - Page 45
1 process of catching?
2 A. This can happen and the aim of the process is to
3 minimise the number of injuries that do occur.
4
5 Q. Is that aim motivated solely by a desire to avoid producing
6 meat which cannot be used or which is of inferior quality?
7 A. The aim is to stop damage to the birds which is
8 obviously going to cause pain and suffering and really the
9 economic reasons are only secondary to that.
10
11 Q. What are the kinds of injuries which (and I will come in a
12 moment to ask you what their frequency is) a bird may
13 suffer in the process of catching?
14 A. The first most obvious one is dislocation of the hip
15 joint which may cause haemmorhage, that is loss of blood,
16 into the joint and may cause mortality. A broken leg is
17 also something that can happen if chickens are mistreated.
18 The other sort of injury is more of a crushing type of
19 injury which can occur if the birds are put roughly into
20 the crates or if their head is caught between the crate and
21 the module when the drawers are being shut.
22
23 Q. I was coming to the loading in a minute. At the moment
24 I am simply on the business of gathering up the birds for
25 insertion into the crates. Have you a rough idea of the
26 incidence of injury inflicted during the process of
27 catching?
28 A. The number of injuries, I am afraid, I cannot quote a
29 number or a percentage. It is a small number of each
30 load. You know, perhaps half a dozen in a 5,000 bird load,
31 but I am really only guessing.
32
33 Q. When the catcher does his task, how many birds will he be
34 picking up at any one time?
35 A. It depends on the size of the bird and the size of the
36 individual catching them but they would normally carry
37 three birds in one hand and three in the other.
38
39 Q. Is there a risk that they may injure their wings from
40 flapping against the other birds that are held in the same
41 hand?
42 A. That seems to be very, very unusual.
43
44 Q. Has any other method of gathering the birds to transport
45 them to the plant come to your attention?
46 A. There have been, there has been development work on
47 what are called mechanical harvesters for broilers which is
48 a machine which you can drive into the house and it
49 actually has fingers on a drum which gathers birds up very
50 gently and puts them on a conveyor belt, and the conveyor
51 belt then takes them to the crates. This machinery has
52 been tried but it has been found very, very difficult to
53 get it to operate effectively in commercial conditions.
54
55 Q. Have you considered it for use at Sun Valley?
56 A. We have looked at it but the problem is that the
57 machine is very prone to breaking down. It is more
58 effective in more modern houses where there are fewer
59 upright posts to get in the way of the machine; in older
60 houses it can be very difficult to operate.
