Day 091 - 17 Feb 95 - Page 13
1 A. OK.
2
3 Q. Would you agree with those classifications?
4 A. I personally find that it is quite difficult to have
5 five classifications. My own view of having done gait
6 scoring myself -- you must remember that I am veterinarian,
7 Dr. Gregory is a scientist -- and I do have some experience
8 in this area, gait scores 1 and 2 are indistinguishable and
9 you would say that those birds are normal. Gait score 3 is
10 a bird that has some sort of defect but it is not really
11 affecting its ability to get around and does not seem to be
12 in any pain. That is my judgment. Gait scores 4 and 5 can
13 be put together as unacceptable to keep that bird alive.
14
15 Q. So, is your view that if a bird is suffering any pain, it
16 is unacceptable?
17 A. That is unacceptable.
18
19 Q. So if when people were using this scoring system and
20 classifying birds as 3, and they were doing that on the
21 basis that they thought they looked as though they were in
22 pain, you would accept then that a gait 3 was a problem?
23 A. If the bird was in pain, I would say that it should be
24 in category 4 or 5.
25
26 Q. OK.
27
28 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I understand that, but, you see, other people
29 may be using the gait scores in a different way.
30 A. Well, I think we are saying here that gait score 3, the
31 bird is showing some abnormality but not necessarily that
32 it is in any pain.
33
34 Q. It looks as if 3 to Sorensen associated pain with grade 3.
35 I suppose at the end of the day what matters is if to your
36 eye the kindest gait which you see, whatever number you
37 hang on it, signifies to you that the bird is or may be in
38 some pain?
39 A. Yes, sir. This is really the most important thing.
40 I think also we should remember that the British Poultry
41 Federation have agreed, following the Farm Animal Welfare
42 Council Report, to do a survey of flocks up and down the
43 country actually measuring the incidence of leg problems
44 and actually gait scoring the birds.
45
46 The way that the survey is being done, the birds are being
47 classified by local farm management and then those
48 measurements are being audited by veterinarians, who are
49 independent of the company, involved to see if the
50 classification by the veterinarian is the same as that
51 given by the local farm management. All that information
52 is being fed into this British Poultry Federation survey.
53 All of that will go back to Farm Animal Welfare Council.
54
55 What I am hoping from all this is that we will get a better
56 view of just how accurate this gait scoring system is, and
57 how a layman, as opposed to a professional person, how
58 their scores actually compare.
59
60 MS. STEEL: Leg weaknesses have been a problem for 20 or so
