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

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