Day 061 - 05 Dec 94 - Page 48
1 to find out in terms of its animal welfare policy?
2 A. No.
3
4 Q. The "hygienic", you are asserting still, are you, that
5 battery cages provide a more hygienic environment than
6 chickens running around a farmyard or something like that?
7 A. Yes.
8
9 Q. You are?
10 A. Yes.
11
12 Q. Would that be the same as for broiler chickens as well?
13 You think that they are more hygienic than running around a
14 farm?
15 A. Yes.
16
17 Q. What do you base that on? Is this your own knowledge or is
18 this something someone has told you?
19 A. Well, I based it on the incidence of salmonella from
20 chickens in a farmyard is pretty dramatic; the incidence of
21 rodents and pests that would roam around the farmyard would
22 certainly not be present in battery cages or in chicken
23 grow out houses.
24
25 Q. Are you saying they do not get any rats in battery units?
26 A. Yes, by and large.
27
28 Q. Do you know that?
29 A. They cannot afford to.
30
31 Q. Is that something you have been told? That is not
32 something within your own knowledge?
33 A. Well, no, I do not work in a chicken battery house so
34 I cannot say it is within my own knowledge, but it is
35 certainly in all the conversations I have had and reports
36 I have read, that would be the situation.
37
38 Q. Where did you get these figures about salmonella, that the
39 incidence of salmonella in chickens in a farmyard is pretty
40 dramatic?
41 A. Well, it is endemic in farm yards.
42
43 Q. Is it not endemic in battery egg production?
44 A. Not necessarily.
45
46 Q. You do not think so?
47 A. No.
48
49 Q. You think it is just a problem with farmyard chickens?
50 A. No, but I think the incidence is lower in battery egg
51 production and certainly in some countries they are
52 salmonella-free anyway. This country is working towards
53 being the same. To go back to farm yards would just
54 magnify the problem.
55
56 Q. "Comfortable", would you describe a battery cage as
57 "comfortable"?
58 A. I think it is pretty comfortable.
59
60 Q. You would like to spend the whole of your life crouched on
