Day 018 - 26 Jul 94 - Page 23

     
     1        A.  There was one per cent of a sample of birds that I
              took at a different period in time.
     2
         Q.   If a bird should miss the water entirely and thus avoid
     3        being stunned, what is the next event in the moving line?
              A.  If it avoids being stunned?
     4
         Q.   Yes.
     5        A.  It would normally miss the automatic neck cutter, and
              so after that there is positioned a man or a woman who
     6        does the cutting manually with a knife.  So, in the normal
              situation there would be a cut made across the neck to
     7        bleed it out.  In this situation at Sun Valley they were
              cutting off the whole head.
     8
         Q.   Is that effective to, as it were, destroy the sensibility
     9        in the bird?
              A.  That is a contentious issue.  Some scientific research
    10        raises doubts about whether there is instantaneous
              unconsciousness in a decapitated chicken.
    11
         Q.   What criteria do you use to determine whether there is
    12        conscious activity, what I would call sensibility, in a
              bird?
    13        A.  Do you mean in the laboratory or in that situation?
 
    14   Q.   No, on the ground?
              A.  In a slaughter house situation, the first thing I
    15        would look at is to determine whether the bird is
              breathing.  If the bird is conscious, it is unlikely to be
    16        able to hold its breath for very long.  It will start
              breathing at some stage.  It is an obvious criteria.
    17        However, if a bird is breathing, it does not prove that
              the bird is conscious.  What it means is it is worth
    18        examining that bird in greater detail.
 
    19   Q.   If it is not breathing you can forget it?
              A.  Absolutely.
    20
         Q.   But if it is breathing you have to go a stage further?
         A.  Yes.
 
    22   Q.   What is the next step?
              A.  One test I commonly use is to grab hold of the head
    23        and see whether it recoils or pulls away as a reaction to
              being handled on the head.  In the letter of the law birds
    24        should be rendered instantaneously insensible to pain
              until death supervenes, so a pain stimulus should be used
    25        in order to establish whether the law is being broken.  In
              that situation for chickens one can apply a pinch to the 
    26        cone of the bird using a finger nail, thumb nail, and 
              seeing whether there is either head shake or head recoil. 
    27
         Q.   Did you use those methods at Sun Valley to try to find out
    28        the percentage or the numbers of those that might still be
              conscious between the stun bath and the neck cutting?
    29        A.  I did.  I used the test, in fact, of grabbing the head
              and pulling it down to see whether there is any reflex
    30        recoil of the bird.