Day 102 - 13 Mar 95 - Page 16
1 A. It is possible. It is more likely to happen in sheds
2 with earth floors where the floors are uneven and,
3 therefore, environment/index.html">litter depth itself is uneven.
4
5 Q. Then it says: "Sometimes areas are flooded. For example,
6 if water lines break or if drinkers are knocked over". Can
7 I take those separately? How often does it happen that
8 areas are actually flooded?
9 A. It is difficult to say how often it happens. It is
10 down to the manager of the farm to avoid this kind of
11 incident. It will happen from time to time but, in my
12 experience, it is fairly rare and usually it can be
13 attended to fairly quickly.
14
15 Q. Is the breakage of water lines one cause of flooding or can
16 it be?
17 A. Yes, it can be.
18
19 Q. What if you knock over one of those old-fashioned or more
20 old-fashioned bell shaped drinkers, does that cause a
21 flood, to use Mr. Bruton's words?
22 A. Yes, it does.
23
24 Q. If you do not deal with it, I think you told us last time
25 you can get a degree of Hock Burn, you can get a degree of
26 capping on the environment/index.html">litter?
27 A. That is correct, you can.
28
29 Q. Next paragraph: "Thinnings were carried out in daylight.
30 Up to 10 to 15,000 birds would be removed halfway through
31 to make room for other birds to grow"; is that correct?
32 A. The procedure which I think I described before was that
33 the pullets are removed at 42 days. They occupy a
34 proportion of the house and the space that they leave is
35 then taken over by the cockerels in the house.
36
37 Q. But give us the day, remind us, rather, of how many longer
38 the cockerels spend in the house after the pullets have
39 been removed?
40 A. They stay until 52 days which is another 10 days after
41 the pullets have gone.
42
43 Q. So there is not a removal at about 20 or 25 days?
44 A. There is not.
45
46 Q. "Sometimes due to daylight the birds will flap and climb
47 over each other and some would be smothered". We looked to
48 see what the company's rules are about that just a moment
49 ago. How often, in your experience, does it happen that a
50 bird or birds is or are smothered in the course of this
51 removal?
52 A. Well, again I think my answer to that would be
53 I believe it is fairly rare. I believe that our foremen
54 and our supervisors understand that it is their specific
55 responsibility to ensure that does not happen. It is
56 certainly absolutely unnecessary for it to happen.
57
58 Q. Looking at this statement overall, rather as you looked at
59 the film just now overall, does it, in your experience of
60 Sun Valley, present a fair picture of what goes on on