Day 090 - 16 Feb 95 - Page 09
1 Q. Right. That is just the once in the evening, is it?
2 A. Usually once. They may do it more often if there are
3 particular circumstances.
4
5 Q. What, if there were particular concerns about -----
6 A. Maybe if the weather was hot or the chicks had just
7 come into the farm and they wanted to check them, something
8 special like that.
9
10 MR. JUSTICE BELL: The chicks go straight on to the environment/index.html">litter, do
11 they?
12 A. Yes, they do.
13
14 Q. I may have got the wrong picture of the environment/index.html">litter being
15 relatively soft to start with and you have these tiny
16 chicks ---
17 A. Yes.
18
19 Q. -- is that a wrong picture?
20 A. No, that is correct. We put in a layer of shavings or
21 a layer of paper which is clean and ready to receive the
22 chicks. The chicks go on to that and then, as required
23 during the life of the birds, we add fresh environment/index.html">litter to keep
24 topping up, so the level builds up as the birds are
25 maintained in the sheds.
26
27 MS. STEEL: The area managers, are they different to the
28 managers you have listed so far?
29 A. Yes, they are employed by the company. They do not
30 live on the farms. They work from our agricultural office
31 and they are allocated a number of farms each to supervise.
32
33 Q. How many farms would they be supervising?
34 A. Again it depends on the distances, the number of -- the
35 size of the farms, they could be supervising anything from
36 six or eight farms, up to the maximum of about 15.
37
38 Q. Has the flock size per shed remained the same for the last
39 10 years or so?
40 A. Yes, yes. It has remained the same.
41
42 Q. How do conditions on British broiler farms compare with
43 other European countries?
44 A. The conditions do depend rather on climate. In the UK
45 which has an adverse climate the housing would be similar
46 in Holland and Northern France and Denmark. In southern
47 European countries where the climate is much hotter they
48 tend to have more open housing. They may have evaporative
49 cooling systems and there are differences really which
50 relate to design, according to the climate.
51
52 Q. Are stocking densities greater?
53 A. The stocking densities would be similar in Northern
54 Europe with controlled environment housing. In the more
55 southern climates where the housing is more open and the
56 weather is much hotter, the stocking density is much less.
57 To go to the extremes, you would get down to a stocking
58 density of half our stocking densities in very hot
59 climates.
60
