Day 113 - 03 Apr 95 - Page 58


     
     1
     2   Q.   This was from Mr. Bowes, was it?
     3        A.  I think it was, yes.  I actually have to admit that
     4        I weigh just under 90 kilogrammes and I am 1.8 metres
     5        high.  I can be imagined as a vertical form of a pig
     6        because pigs are quite like human beings in many ways.  If
     7        I were on my knees and elbows I would have my 1.8 area and
     8        I would have .3 of a metre wide.  Now .3 of a metre is
     9        actually that space, roughly an A4.  The farrowing pen
    10        described was actually twice as large as that, that width.
    11        I think, you asked me about welfare matter, for a lively
    12        and active animal like a pig, which at 90 kilogrammes is
    13        just before puberty, if you like a little boy, or if you
    14        like to think of a little puppy, that is quite
    15        extraordinary constraint and frustration of its natural
    16        tendencies.  Now the Farm Animal Welfare Council, whose
    17        codes we go by quite a bit, they are quite good codes in
    18        many ways, would find that that is an infringement of one
    19        its essential tenets, one of its essential five tenets, and
    20        so I would put to the court that if I am asked about
    21        welfare, that also is a very serious welfare constraint.
    22
    23   Q.   That is in the finishing unit, is it?
    24        A.  Yes, that was up to 90 kilogrammes for what we would
    25        call bacon pigs, baconers.
    26
    27   Q.   We do not seem to be doing this in the same systematic way
    28        we did it with cattle, but one thing we wanted to ask about
    29        dry sow stalls, is what was their prevalence at the end of
    30        the 1980s, what percentage of pigs?
    31        A.  It was over 50 per cent.  I would think well over 50
    32        per cent.
    33
    34   Q.   To go back to the farrowing crate, I think you said the
    35        pigs are kept there for between 21 and 24 days; is that
    36        correct?
    37        A.  Yes, they would then be called weanlings or weaners.
    38
    39   Q.   Sows would be kept there, yes, sows?
    40        A.  Piglets would be kept adjacent.
    41
    42   Q.   What is your view on the effect of the sows' welfare of
    43        being in a farrowing crate for three weeks?
    44        A.  I think that it causes her a lot of distress, she
    45        cannot mother properly.  The problem essentially is not
    46        just the crate; it is the expectation that she has to
    47        manage this enormous number of piglets because you see wild
    48        swine would only have about six piglets a year, whereas
    49        these mothers are expected to bring up 25.  That is, as
    50        I say, a high perinatal mortality rate.  I actually saw the 
    51        prototypes of the RSPCA's freedom farrowing crate which 
    52        occupied -- you had eight of those in a space that would 
    53        have been occupied by 12 of the old fashioned sort, and
    54        they were supposedly improved but actually the mortality
    55        rate was higher in those than it was in the old fashioned
    56        ones.  It is very difficult to find any system, except a
    57        fairly extensive one, where the sow can properly mother so
    58        many piglets.
    59
    60   Q.   So that is a problem, is it, of the ----

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