Day 089 - 15 Feb 95 - Page 14
1 concerned, a matter of heredity on the one hand and on the
2 other hand a matter of environment?
3 A. I think patterns of behaviour are conditioned by both
4 factors. I think heredity is important. The breeding of
5 the animal will determine its behaviour but also the
6 environment also determines behaviour, and I think that
7 applies to all species -- including man.
8
9 Q. It will be suggested (of this you can be sure) by the
10 Defendants, Dr. Pattison, that the conditions in which your
11 chickens are kept are, to use their word "cruel", because
12 in the sheds, for example, the broiler chickens have no
13 access to, for example, outdoor air, sunshine, dust in a
14 farmyard and so on and so forth. To what extent, in your
15 opinion, are those activities, sitting in the sunshine,
16 having a dust bath, or whatever, normal patterns of
17 behaviour or normal behaviour for a chicken which has spent
18 its whole life inside?
19 A. I do not think you can really argue that it is a normal
20 requirement. Obviously, if a chicken is kept outdoors then
21 it has access to these things, but if it is kept indoors
22 there is no scientific evidence to indicate that it is
23 being deprived. All that is happening is that it is being
24 kept in a different environment. That would apply to
25 outdoor pigs or indoor pigs, the same comparison comes.
26
27 Q. Are you aware of any work which has been done on what
28 I might call the development of the chicken's brain, how
29 well developed the chicken's brain might be?
30 A. The chicken has a very simple brain. It does not have
31 the powers of reasoning that mammals and human beings
32 have. The cortex of the brain does not have the
33 convolutions in it which indicate the capacity for
34 reasoning. So, it is very -- it is a simple brain. It is
35 conditioned by heredity and it is very -- its ability for
36 conscious thought is not really scientifically proven.
37
38 Q. May I ask you this, you told us that you care about the
39 animals under your wing, if I may use that expression; do
40 you personally, as an individual human being, feel any
41 discomfort about the fact that these chickens which you are
42 responsible for do not have the same sort of conditions as
43 chickens that live in farmyards or used to?
44 A. I personally do not feel any discomfort at that.
45
46 Q. Do you then see any conflict in the position you hold and
47 the work you do, on the one hand, and, on the other hand,
48 your adherence to these Five Freedoms?
49 A. I do not see any conflict at all, and I see it as a
50 very important part of my job to ensure that those Freedoms
51 are being observed within our farming system.
52
53 Q. Do you accept that within the farming system it is
54 inevitable that the birds or the animals, whether they be
55 pigs or cattle, sheep, will undergo in the process of their
56 subservience to human interest a certain amount of
57 suffering, discomfort and pain, or a proportion of them
58 will?
59 A. There is no reason why that should happen if the
60 standard of husbandry is high in any system, whether it is
