Day 066 - 14 Dec 94 - Page 64
1 tendency to peck if the animals are deficient in some
2 minerals, calcium has been associated with that. There
3 also could be a sign of aggression, there will be some
4 chickens that are more aggressive than others.
5
6 Q. Can you pause there. Do you know of any evidence to
7 suggest that the aggression, leaving the breed out of it
8 for the moment, has anything to do with the fact they are
9 quite close together?
10 A. It is part of their behaviour. You could see any bird
11 in the open, in the wild, it could be an eagle or anything
12 else. When they are born they have a tendency, they have
13 to establish their social status within that nest,
14 especially under stress when they go hungry or if the chick
15 is smaller than they are. If the chick shows some signs of
16 sickness, that is a way where Mother Nature meant for those
17 animals not to live. So, there is a natural tendency for
18 the birds to pick on the weaker chicks that will not
19 survive otherwise, which by doing that will leave them with
20 enough for themselves. That will happen whether or not
21 they are in a grow house or in a nest in the wild. That is
22 Mother Nature.
23
24 Q. Does it follow, can one reduce or eliminate this tendency
25 simply by giving enough of the right kind of food?
26 A. It could be reduced significantly if you provide the
27 right nutrition to the animal, but to eliminate it 100 per
28 cent that is difficult.
29
30 Q. I think I have for the moment at least asked enough about
31 laying chickens, except for this. When laying chickens are
32 hatched, I assume that a proportion of the chicks will not
33 be female?
34 A. That is correct.
35
36 Q. From which I hope it follows that a proportion will be
37 male, is that right?
38 A. That is correct.
39
40 Q. Do you know what sort of proportions male and female
41 chickens have when they are born?
42 A. 53 per cent will be females and 47 per cent will be
43 males.
44
45 Q. With egg laying breeds, I am not talking about meat breeds
46 I am talking about egg laying breeds, what happens as a
47 generality nowadays in the world to the male chicks?
48 A. There are different practices throughout the world.
49 They vary from those chicks, the males, would be sold at a
50 discount price so they can be grown, and you can go to the
51 other extreme where those male chicks will be destroyed.
52
53 Q. We know that Sun Valley in this country which are one of
54 the people that supply McDonald's, do practically a
55 birth-to-table operation rather like Equity and Tysons in
56 America, they put the unwanted male chicks into a tub of
57 some kind which they then fill with carbon dioxide until
58 the chicks are suffocated or asphyxiated I should say, and
59 then they macerate the dead bodies, whatever is left over,
60 for whatever it can be used for. Is that a technique which
