Day 091 - 17 Feb 95 - Page 56
1 infected dose, does it not?
2 A. I really am not qualified to comment on that.
3
4 Q. You do not know.
5
6 MR. JUSTICE BELL: How are we doing with the time? Are you
7 going to complete Dr. Pattison in a day at the end of the
8 week after next?
9
10 MS. STEEL: I do not know. Obviously, there is still transport
11 and slaughter to do.
12
13 MR. JUSTICE BELL: You have got transport and slaughter,
14 I appreciate that. What else have you got, until the
15 chickens are caught, before they are caught?
16
17 MS. STEEL: There are a couple more things. Maybe we should do
18 them.
19
20 MR. JUSTICE BELL: See if you can complete those this evening.
21
22 MS. STEEL: Prior to the introduction of the new heat stress
23 procedure, how many incidents did you have in which birds
24 suffered heat stress?
25 A. It is difficult to say how many. Certainly, if we had
26 any, if we had hot weather in any particular year prior to
27 introducing that procedure, we would have probably two or
28 three episodes each summer where there would be mortality
29 of varying degrees.
30
31 Q. Affecting all the sheds?
32 A. No, it was usually just occasional. It was odd farms
33 usually with sheds of birds which were ready to come into
34 slaughter. So, in the last day or two prior to slaughter.
35
36 Q. If there was an incident, would the whole shed die?
37 A. No, not usually. Usually, a proportion would die which
38 could vary according to the circumstances.
39
40 Q. Vary from what to what?
41 A. I suppose what we would regard as a typical incident
42 might involve, say, 5 per cent of the birds in the shed
43 dying.
44
45 Q. That would be above the normal mortality rate then?
46 A. Yes, that is over and above the normal.
47
48 Q. It would not only be the ones that died that were affected?
49 A. Well, no, the others obviously would be affected by the
50 heat.
51
52 Q. It would cause them a good deal of stress, that is why it
53 is called "heat stress", presumably?
54 A. Yes, I think it would certainly cause them stress.
55
56 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Is that to some extent self-correcting and
57 some birds die, the heat drops, or is that an insignificant
58 factor?
59 A. No, I do not think that is really significant. I think
60 it usually, the way that you saw it was it was normally
