Day 018 - 26 Jul 94 - Page 43
1
Q. Which may not be as effective a way of stunning?
2 A. I do not know, but it spans the brain though.
3 Q. Yes. You also recommend that, or you express the opinion
that a low frequency current may increase the risk of a
4 pig getting an electric shock before stunning?
A. In comparison with?
5
Q. High frequency current, I take it, but I do not know.
6 A. Could you guide me as to ----
7 Q. Paragraph 2 on page 9. Perhaps I misunderstood it.
8 MR. JUSTICE BELL: How do you put the stunner, front to back,
on a pig? It has virtually no back of the head, does it?
9 A. It is a different design of tongs. If you take a
telephone receiver, a handset, and you make it bigger it
10 looks a bit like that. So one end goes on the head, the
other end goes on the back. You hold it down and apply
11 current between those two ends. Does that answer your
question?
12
Q. Yes. If one side of the tongs goes on the back, because
13 I am just trying to understand it, the pig basically has
no, once it has been fattened for slaughter, back of the
14 skull, does it, or very little that you can distinguish?
It runs straight into the neck?
15 A. Into the neck, yes.
16 Q. So where do you -- you put one side of the caliper on---?
A. Right. It is best to line it up with the rear margin
17 of the eyes, if you are being accurate; so you want the
front electrode to be almost in line with the rear margin
18 of the eyes in order to make sure that that electrode
spans the brain. Then current will throw through the
19 brain to the back region. If, on the other hand, you put
the front electrode on the neck and applied it neck to
20 back, that could be potentially very unpleasant for the
pig. What you are doing is electrocuting the pig, you are
21 causing a cardiac arrest without necessarily sending any
current through the brain in stunning it. So you are
22 having a current applied to the body, it is getting a
cardiac arrest, which itself could be quite painful.
23
Q. It is essential to get one right on to the front of the
24 head?
A. Absolutely.
25
MR. RAMPTON: Perhaps it is best if we do not -- I do not need
26 to -- go through these particular comments that you had to
make numbered 1 to 6 on pages nine and ten of your report,
27 Dr. Gregory. May I just ask you this question? Do you
see any of those comments as being major criticisms of the
28 procedures employed at GD Bowes in the stunning of pigs?
A. They did not compromise the pig in terms of its
29 regaining consciousness following stunning. So in terms
of what the objective of stunning and slaughter is from
30 the welfare point of view it was not compromised.
