Day 114 - 04 Apr 95 - Page 31
1 not get a rest in intensive conditions, you are inviting
2 all sorts of welfare problems and disease.
3
4 Q. You mentioned earlier about sows being maternal animals.
5 Talking about breast feeding in humans, generally speaking,
6 when women stop breast feeding it is not because they have
7 had their babies taken away from them. Is that something
8 that causes distress to the pigs or to the sow?
9 A. The abrupt changes are, undoubtedly, a cause of stress
10 as well as distress. But, essentially, it is the way one
11 pushes on. These are all aspects of pushing on with
12 production and putting a strain on the system and the wear
13 and tear, particularly, with an animal where the industry
14 can go on with dispensing, still finding some value in the
15 sow for sausages, for example, when she has had five
16 farrowings or about five farrowings.
17
18 Q. If the piglets are not taken away, generally, would pigs
19 keep to kind of family groups for some time?
20 A. Oh, yes. It depends how far you go back, but wild
21 swine would form family groups, yes. They are very
22 maternal animals. They will look after their piglets very
23 well. I would say the nearest I could explain it to you in
24 terms of more familiar animals, if you had dogs, bitches
25 actually are not as good mothers, I would say, as sows,
26 kept in those conditions, but the animals do need their
27 mothers, just like human babies, for longer than that
28 time.
29
30 Obviously, the very early days are necessary for them to
31 get the colostrum, but there is no doubt at all that the
32 mother's milk, after what is called the colostrum has been
33 absorbed by the young, the mother's milk still has
34 antibodies that gives the protection.
35
36 Now, what happens a great deal in pig farming is that in
37 their short lives the animals are exposed to bacterial
38 diseases, particularly, which under the stress are mainly
39 respiratory problems and also gut problems, diarrhoea.
40 Those are treated almost routinely with antibiotics like
41 the sulphur drugs, tylosin is another one, and that is
42 where you get the problem in such systems because amongst
43 the pigs' other practices are that they will tend to
44 consume each other's excreta. Instead of the drugs being
45 passed out into the excreta or the residues, the pigs are
46 not only receiving it in their feed but also receiving it
47 in the excreta of other animals.
48
49 So, the residue levels build up. That is one of the
50 reasons why the MRLs, the maximum residue levels, are
51 exceeded. That is a sign, to my view, that the welfare is
52 very poor, the husbandry is very poor.
53
54 I would say also there is a pollution problem because pig
55 slurry is terribly difficult to get rid of. It is not very
56 pleasant, particularly if the pigs have been fed on whey --
57 because you did ask me about the welfare, if the piglets
58 are taken away from the mother, they are not getting proper
59 mother's milk, they are getting replacements. Some of
60 these replacement feeds contain a lot of whey, and the
