Day 092 - 27 Feb 95 - Page 65
1 that is their parents. We do not do that. When they are
2 grown and raised they think everybody else around, that is
3 their environment, that is how they feel at home. We
4 should never make an assumption because they are in a cage
5 or in an enclosed environment hat they are going to think
6 like humans. That is totally incorrect. It is not only my
7 expert opinion, those are the facts. There is plenty of
8 evidence to document that.
9
10 Q. So far as you are concerned, chickens, apart from their
11 need for, say, food and water and absence of disease, do
12 not have any choices which need protecting by those that
13 exploit them or use them?
14
15 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Just take a moment.
16
17 MR. MORRIS: I am trying to find out what he is saying. I do
18 not agree with any of it, but I will not say that. That is
19 comment.
20
21 MR. JUSTICE BELL: That may be. What he has said is that in his
22 view, rightly or wrongly, a chicken is not aware that it
23 might have a choice for what you might describe as a better
24 way of life. Now, you may challenge that, but that is the
25 basis of your point of view?
26 A. That is correct.
27
28 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, could I add this? I quite understand
29 this exchange that has been going on. I would only say
30 this, that if the Defendants have a positive case, a
31 factual case, and I am not now talking about what is
32 usually erroneously called "common sense", if there is a
33 factual or scientific basis for suggesting that Dr. Gomez
34 Gonzalez is wrong about this, then it ought to be put to
35 him. It is not, for this purpose, sufficient just to say,
36 "Well, I would not like to be a chicken".
37
38 MS. STEEL: That is a political statement.
39
40 MR. JUSTICE BELL: While you are on stocking densities can I try
41 to illustrate in relation to something Ms. Steel was asking
42 about earlier in the day? If we are on debeaking and there
43 is evidence that peripheral nerves which are capable of
44 registering pain or some other form of discomfort in
45 chickens, extend far enough down a chicken's beak to reach
46 into the part which is cut off, then that is an example of
47 something which you are putting to the witness. If you are
48 putting that the stocking density at 36 kilos per square
49 metre leads to a certain discomfort on the part of the
50 chicken, then I suggest you actually put that to him. We
51 could argue (it is perhaps not the most fortunate metaphor
52 to use) until the cows come home about whether you think it
53 is cruel or the witness thinks it is cruel. Try to put
54 something which you say gives cogency to your point of view
55 rather than to his, if you have got it.
56
57 MR. MORRIS: When 52 days is nearly up, yes?
58 A. Yes.
59
60 Q. In the shed, do the birds cover all the shed uniformly or
