Day 088 - 13 Feb 95 - Page 54
1 a big shed or what have you?
2 A. We have farms, traditional buildings that used to keep
3 the carriages of horses, that used to keep the cows and
4 calves, that have been used in the old traditional manner,
5 that have been converted and had insulated floors put in
6 for the production of pigs, and you can see some people
7 saying it is great shame to see Georgian buildings with
8 pigs in.
9
10 Q. What size building are we talking about?
11 A. Again?
12
13 Q. Something the size of this courtroom, bigger, smaller or
14 not?
15
16 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Do they vary enormously in size?
17 A. Well, sir, if we take this quite good example: If this
18 was originally a cattle yard, right, that would be
19 converted for the use of, say, a dry sow house, so there
20 would be the pens where the sows could go and feed, the
21 troughs where they could go and feed, and the sows would be
22 able to be in the straw and we would make kennels along the
23 side so that the sows could go in the kennels, in the straw
24 kennels, they could come out and feed and in the centre
25 would be a walkway, a passageway, for the stock men to walk
26 down and feed them, inspect them at least twice a day, and
27 that would be a conversion of a traditional cattle yard.
28 Now -----
29
30 Q. Is it more or less like the kennels -- we have got
31 photographs in the brochure outside but under a roof?
32 A. Very similar, we do have that. In the particular farm
33 I am now talking about where my brother lives, that is
34 exactly what we do have in an old cattle yard.
35
36 MS. STEEL: What I was trying to get at was you used traditional
37 buildings and that was a bit confusing anyway, but the 350
38 to 1,100 pigs per indoor unit, they do not all have free
39 access to each other, they would be subdivided within that
40 unit?
41 A. No, they do not have free access to each other. That
42 would be the most dangerous thing you could do. That would
43 be most cruel.
44
45 Q. That is what I am trying to ask. I am just trying to
46 understand the situation. Can you explain how many they
47 are sub-divided into then?
48 A. They are subdivided into -- this varies from farm to
49 farm depending on the size of the farm, the convenience of
50 the farm, the conversion or utilisation of farm buildings.
51 It is no good to try and overcrowd animals into too small a
52 space. I did not get too many. It might be convenient to
53 have your sows in lots of six, you subdivide them, then you
54 would actually subdivide your farrowing room to six, so you
55 try to keep the sisters altogether all the time going
56 through the system and on another farm it might be 12 sows.
57
58 Q. Right.
59 A. It is best utilisation of space for the welfare of the
60 animal.
