Day 093 - 28 Feb 95 - Page 59
1 Q. The National Research Council, you know who they are?
2 A. Yes. I mean the figures, the question you were asking.
3
4 Q. They estimate that sickness, injury and premature death of
5 cattle represents an economic loss of $4.6 billion a year
6 in the United States?
7 A. It is possible, yes. That is assuming, when they make
8 those kinds of assumptions, and I have seen several of
9 those reports, they assume that if everything were perfect,
10 if no animal was under stress, if they have a perfect life,
11 this is what you could save. That obviously does not
12 happen. It does not happen in any biological system.
13 There are animals that will die from natural causes. There
14 are animals that will die from disease. There are animals
15 that will injure themselves. That is going to happen.
16
17 Q. Is it not right that it is actually cheaper to run the
18 systems that you use and have a certain amount of animals
19 sick and ill then it is to run less intensive systems?
20 A. No, that is thoroughly the opposite. That is
21 incorrect.
22
23 MR. MORRIS: How do they try to combat disease in the feed lots?
24 A. That is a wide very and general question. A lot of it
25 is through prevention. A lot of it is through good
26 management practices, primarily, feeding, vaccination,
27 having the right type of animals, having the right type of
28 environment overall for the animal. From going to the
29 cowboys they go to the feed lot making sure the animals
30 look healthy, and if they spot a problem they isolate it.
31
32 Q. But they are regularly sprayed with insecticides, yes?
33 A. Regularly, no. It happens -- not on the feed lots.
34 Prior in the grasslands where in the pasture they go
35 through similar to what you would see on chickens, they go
36 through a -- they dig a hole, put concrete and the animals
37 go and take a bath, take a dip to control the insects, but
38 not in the feed lots.
39
40 Q. Do you know someone called Orville Shell who he wrote a
41 book called Modern Meat in 1984 when you were doing your
42 studies or after that?
43 A. I do not know remember the name.
44
45 Q. In the US there is no restriction on the use of beef from
46 Canada, is there?
47 A. Restriction?
48
49 Q. Yes.
50 A. In what sense, trade?
51
52 Q. Beef in Canada gets used in the USA?
53 A. Yes.
54
55 Q. That is fairly standard. There are big producers in
56 Canada?
57 A. Yes, there are.
58
59 Q. So they are not a hot country, are they? I thought when you
60 said about feed lots being in mainly hot states ----
