Day 290 - 30 Oct 96 - Page 23
1 the actual reporting of the physical conditions, I am not
2 challenging what he says, although obviously he would be
3 trying to portray it in the best possible light. But in
4 term of the effects of the conditions, then obviously we
5 are challenging his evidence.
6
7 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes, I understand that. Right. Anyway, you
8 got to farrowing indoors.
9
10 MS. STEEL: Yes. He said that a sow would have roughly 1.2 or
11 1.3 square metres of lying area, and then they have the
12 area where they can dung and roam in addition to that.
13 Presumably they are roaming through the dung. That was on
14 day 88, page 55, line 17.
15
16 He said that two days before they are expected to give
17 birth they get moving to the farrowing room. That was day
18 88, page 55, line 23.
19
20 And I asked him whether or not it was possible for the pig
21 to turn around in the farrowing crate because there is --
22 he admitted that in the farrowing room the pigs were put in
23 farrowing crates. And he said it is impossible for the pig
24 to turn around in a farrowing crate, which obviously we
25 consider to be extremely cruel. But he claimed that they
26 took their pigs out once a day and let them walk up and
27 down, although basically that appears to be just for the
28 purposes of cleaning out their crates and making a brief
29 inspection of the condition of the pig, because they were
30 only out for, he said, a few minutes, five minutes or ten
31 minutes. Whatever it is, even if it was ten minutes, it is
32 still not very long. It still means that the sow is
33 confined in a tiny crate for 23 hours and 50 minutes every
34 day. And the reference for that is day 88, page 55, line
35 56.
36
37 He said that the sows spend three and a half to four weeks
38 in the crate, about twice a year. That was day 88, page
39 56, line 2. And that the crates are about half to three
40 quarters of a meter longer than the pig. That was day 88,
41 page 56, line 47. So basically, for almost four weeks
42 twice a year, 23 hours and 50 minutes every day, the sows
43 are confined in an area where they cannot turn around and
44 where they cannot take more than one or two steps backwards
45 or forwards, and we consider that that is grossly
46 inhumane.
47
48 If we just contrast that with the outdoor pigs, where he
49 said that the outdoor pigs have the freedom to choose the
50 arc of their choice and then have the freedom to come in
51 and out as they choose. That was on day 88, page 56, line
52 57.
53
54 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
55
56 MS. STEEL: He said that ten years ago most of the farms
57 supplying Bowes, the pigs would have been inside. That was
58 day 88, page 57, line 48. He said that - this is the point
59 I was on earlier - on the company's farms all the pigs went
60 inside in the '70s and they started coming back out in the
