Day 018 - 26 Jul 94 - Page 17

     
     1
         Q.   Making a percentage of birds brought to slaughter, which
     2        were dead on arrival, of 0.17?
              A.  Yes.
     3
         Q.   The mean percentage for all the six plants or is it
     4        seven -- sorry, six -- was 0.19?
              A.  Yes.
     5
         Q.   Do you happen to know whether there is an average
     6        percentage for the industry as a whole?
              A.  This would be one such estimate.
     7
         Q.   It would?
     8        A.  Other estimates are remarkably close to this.
 
     9   Q.   Of the 190 birds which you found dead on arrival on that
              occasion, what, in your estimate, was the most common
    10        cause of death?  Can you tell that from looking at the
              columns?
         A.  The most common cause of death was congestive heart
              failure.
    12
         Q.   How does that come about?
    13        A.  It is likely that the stress associated with handling
              and transporting the birds results in a cardiac arrest,
    14        but it is also likely that there is a predisposition in
              the birds to that cardiac arrest.
    15
         Q.   Can you go down to the last block of figures in that table
    16        which is subheaded Causes of Fatal Trauma?
              A.  Yes.
    17
         Q.   Number of cases goes first.  Then we get "dislocated or
    18        broken hip" percentage.
              A.  Yes.
    19
         Q.   We go over to column F, which is Sun Valley.  We get, as
    20        compared with the others, the relatively tiny figure of
              six per cent, do we not?
         A.  Yes.
 
    22   Q.   How is it that chickens have their hips dislocated or
              broken before they arrive at the slaughter house?
    23        A.  The precise mechanics of it is not fully known, but
              I think I can give a very intuitive guess.
    24
         Q.   Perhaps I did not ask my question very well.  What, in
    25        your view, is the likeliest cause or causes?
              A.  Right.  When the birds are caught by the personnel 
    26        that go into the shed, they crouch down and they grab each 
              bird individually by one leg; they bunch a number of birds 
    27        held by one leg into one hand; they do the same for the
              opposite hand.
    28
         MR. JUSTICE BELL:  About how many?
    29        A.  This depends upon the weights of the birds, but it can
              be three in one hand, three in another.  In the case of
    30        Sun Valley, I believe that they use less because they are
              in a large bird market, so-called, they handle heavy