Day 108 - 27 Mar 95 - Page 16

     
     1        house in the north of Yorkshire after a year in cages, and
     2        then another farmer in the same area had bought them up,
     3        obviously very cheaply probably 30p a bird or whatever, put
     4        them into his cages, and we bought them from there after a
     5        further year of being in a battery and brought them home
     6        and supplied them with straw and so on.
     7
     8        I watched this hen -- unfortunately I had no video camera
     9         -- make a very, very deep nest with this typical picking
    10        of straw that way and then that way and it went up so that
    11        she was practically out of sight and it sounded a bit
    12        sentimental at the time, "well she is making up for lost
    13        time" and we thought this and we believed it.  It is
    14        interesting that now this is scientifically accepted.  It
    15        is called rebound behaviour, I believe, and it is described
    16        in Dr. Marion Dawkins' (of the Zoology Department, Oxford
    17        University) new book "Through Our Eyes Only" and this very
    18        habit of making up for lost time is described in those
    19        quite ordinary words, so I was interested by that.
    20
    Q.   The chicken that you are referring to, that was one that
    22        had spent how long in cages?
    23        A.  Two years roughly, two different sets of cages, yes.
    24
    25   Q.   Have you witnessed that in other chickens as well?
    26        A.  Not so obviously but they do go into quiet corners and
    27        make nests but this was a very extreme example, if you
    28        like.
    29
    30   Q.   You mentioned the book by Miss Dawkins.  Do you want to
    31        refer to parts of that?
    32        A.  No, it was really that particular thing which I found
    33        interesting.
    34
    35   Q.   That was one of the documents that was handed in this
    36        morning.
    37
    38   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Right.
    39        A.  She does make it quite clear in that book, and she is a
    40        very reputable well known scientist who has carried out
         research for the RSPCA since the 1970s, and she makes it
    42        clear that the ancestral behaviour patterns are never,
    43        never outbred, never lost by changes in habitat, they are
    44        still there, precisely the same.
    45
    46   Q.   What is your experience with regards to dust-bathing?
    47        A.  We have watched battery hens that we bought ourselves
    48        virtually naked of feathers dust-bathing which, in a sense,
    49        proves that it is an innate instinct and rather than a
    50        necessity it is sometimes claimed that as they are not so 
    51        in need of dust baths they do not make them, but again 
    52        scientists have a term for this.  They call it "vacuum 
    53        dust-bathing", when the birds make as if to dust-bathe on
    54        the wire floors and sometimes cause themselves damage, and
    55        it is an accepted activity which is frequently performed
    56        and futile of course.
    57
    58   Q.   When you say it is futile, are you referring then to them
    59        after they have been released or?
    60        A.  No.  In the cages they achieve nothing through it but