Day 108 - 27 Mar 95 - Page 12
1 at the Ministry of Agriculture Centre in Leeds and I have
2 their certificate which I think is with the court.
3
4 Q. I think that is one of the documents that was handed in
5 this morning as well?
6
7 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes, I saw that.
8
9 MS. STEEL: Did you lodge a complaint about that farm?
10 A. Yes, and an RSPCA prosecution was successful
11 subsequently.
12
13 Q. That was as a result of your action, was it?
14 A. Yes.
15
16 MR. JUSTICE BELL: There is one thing I would like to say.
17 I appreciate the difficulty you have. I do not think I
18 have expressly been told what the position is with regard
19 to oasters, but Mrs. Druce has not inspected Sun Valley. I
20 am going to assume that when she gives evidence about the
21 conditions of broilers or battery hens, she is not
22 specifically speaking about oasters or Sun Valley, although
23 you may ask me to infer that there is no reason why it
24 should not be any different, but she is not specifically
25 referring to either of those establishments unless I am
26 told so.
27
28 MS. STEEL: Right. The incident that you have recounted about
29 the chicken with the hugely distended abdomen, to your
30 knowledge, is that something that would be extremely
31 unusual or -----
32 A. No, egg peritonitis is one of the fairly common causes
33 of mortality in battery hens.
34
35 Q. What else strikes you as unsatisfactory as far as battery
36 units are concerned?
37 A. Well, the total lack of provision for most of their
38 behavioural instincts. One of the main, most urgent ones
39 which they feel on an almost daily basis is the laying,
40 nesting instincts in which to lay an egg which never is
41 bred out of them and, apparently, they try to hide under
42 each others' bodies. Last week there was a programme on
43 television, "3D", which featured a battery unit in Norwich
44 where there were long dead hens in the cages -- they had
45 died obviously days, if not weeks, previously -- and hens
46 were trying to nest into these dead bodies.
47
48 They are desperate for nesting material and somewhere
49 private to lay their eggs, and there is a video, a recently
50 made one, called "Simulus Response" in which it is shown
51 how a battery hen or a hen, a laying hen, will go a long
52 way and overcome various obstacles, and even press red
53 buttons three times, or whatever, to go along a walkway to
54 finally reach a nesting area. It is accepted in scientific
55 circles that it is an extremely strong instinct which is
56 still just as strong in any hen, despite the battery cage
57 conditions.
58
59 Q. Right. The video that you mentioned, you would like that
60 to be shown to the court?
