Day 089 - 15 Feb 95 - Page 13


     
     1   Q.   You can read fear in a chicken's eyes, do you think?
     2        A.  I think with a bit of experience you learn to know
     3        whether they are comfortable or uncomfortable.
     4
     5   Q.   I take it that in this paragraph, this provision 5, we are
     6        not talking now about distress caused by physical injury or
     7        illness or sickness ---
     8        A.  I believe that is the case.
     9
    10   Q.   -- or discomfort; those seem to be covered by the first
    11        three.  I would like you to look at the fourth condition:
    12        "Freedom to express normal behaviour - by providing
    13        sufficient space, proper facilities and company of the
    14        animal's own kind".  That subline, again it is an
    15        additional gloss on the original FAWC definition of April
    16        1992, is it not?
    17        A.  Yes.
    18
    19   Q.   I think we can understand "sufficient space".  What do you
    20        take "proper facilities" to mean?
    21        A.  The facilities, I believe, would be housing which keeps
    22        the animals warm and dry and comfortable, and so the
    23        housing is of a sufficient standard in terms of insulation
    24        and water proofing and so on.
    25
    26   Q.   It says then the "company of the animal's own kind".  We
    27        know that the animals in the wild live a solitary, and it
    28        could be argued that the domestic cat is a solitary
    29        animal.  We have been told in this court -- no-one has
    30        disputed it -- that cattle and pigs are social animals;
    31        what about chickens?
    32        A.  I believe that chickens also are sociable animals and
    33        they enjoy the company of their own kind.
    34
    35   Q.   May I ask you then finally on this a much more difficult
    36        question -- answer it, please, if you can, but only in so
    37        far as you can -- what do you take to be the normal
    38        behaviour of a broiler chicken which has been removed from
    39        its mother before it ever sees the hen that laid the egg
    40        and is thereafter brought up as a chick and a chicken in
    41        the company of other broiler chickens in a shed?  What do
    42        you take to be its normal patterns of behaviour?
    43        A.  The normal patterns of behaviour of broiler chickens
    44        would include eating, drinking, running around on deep
    45        environment/index.html">litter, scratching.  Those would be their sort of every day
    46        activities which are conditioned by their environment to a
    47        certain extent.
    48
    49   Q.   Those chickens, do they have the opportunity to do all
    50        those normal things, your chickens? 
    51        A.  They do have the opportunity to do that, yes. 
    52 
    53   Q.   Do they do them?
    54        A.  They certainly do.  When they are young, like all young
    55        animals, when they are newly hatched they run around a lot
    56        more than when they are older.
    57
    58   Q.   Again this is, I have no doubt, a difficult question but
    59        please try to answer it.  To what extent, if any, in your
    60        opinion, are patterns of normality, so far as a chicken is

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