Day 096 - 03 Mar 95 - Page 63


     
     1
     2   Q.   Can I ask you, please, looking at the standards of animal
     3        husbandry displayed on those films overall, how do they
     4        compare with the standards which over, let us say, the last
     5        five, 10, 15, 20 years, have pertained in your company and
     6        its suppliers?
     7        A.  I would have said that if a pig producer had operated
     8        to what was said on the video, pigs are left to rot, that
     9        video, that was total nonsense.  That was the afterbirth
    10        there and a still born pig or two there.  That could have
    11        probably been taken, I do not know, within 10 minutes of
    12        the sow pigging.  The other thing that was said on there, a
    13        person was not present while the pig had its pigs or the
    14        sow had its pigs.  In many places there are sometimes
    15        24-hour surveys on farrowing houses.  We will have a shift
    16        pattern going around our farrowing houses, but that is not
    17        to say that when one has come and inspected sows in here to
    18        see if they are all right, you go into the next farrowing
    19        house, you go to the next one, you come back in 10 minutes
    20        time a sow could then push her afterbirth out, there is the
    21        actual wonderful scene for a dreadful photograph, what we
    22        have seen.
    23
    24   Q.   In reality in G.D. Bowes & Sons, what actually happens when
    25        the stockman comes in and finds that the pig in his
    26        momentary absence has farrowed, what does he then do?
    27        A.  He inspects the sow and anything like that on there
    28        would be cleared up immediately.
    29
    30   Q.   I suppose piglets do get stillborn from time to time as
    31        humans do?
    32        A.  Yes, they do. Unfortunately, one of the main concepts
    33        which has happened with the blue ear disease.
    34
    35   Q.   With, I am sorry?
    36        A.  Blue ear disease.
    37
    38   Q.   Blue ear disease?
    39        A.  Yes, that has been one of the main problems.
    40
    41   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  How do you spell it?
    42        A.  B-L-U-E  E-A-R.
    43
    44   MR. RAMPTON:  Taken overall, what you have seen of those films,
    45        how would you react to a suggestion that those were in any
    46        sense representative of the standards which pertain in your
    47        company?
    48        A.  In no way are they representative of our company
    49        whatsoever.
    50 
    51   Q.   Was there ever a time in your company when those sorts of 
    52        conditions would be observed? 
    53        A.  No.
    54
    55   Q.   Can I ask you about pig flu?
    56        A.  Yes.
    57
    58   Q.   You say there has been a recent outbreak I think?
    59        A.  Yes.
    60

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