Day 114 - 04 Apr 95 - Page 32
1 slurry is appalling, not very useful really, and a lot of
2 it causes problems with waterways and so on.
3
4 Q. Pollution?
5 A. Pollution, yes.
6
7 Q. Is that a serious problem in this country?
8 A. Yes.
9
10 Q. Do you think that keeping animals, keeping pigs, indoors
11 all their lives or outdoors totally enclosed and on
12 concrete has any welfare implications?
13 A. What you have described are certainly uncongenial
14 circumstances, and I think that a welfarist would want to
15 see animals or human beings kept in congenial
16 circumstances, so that is one point. Whether the stress is
17 more severe is something that we would have to go into in
18 more detail, but I think that with an intelligent animal
19 like a pig, then there is much to be thought of in
20 frustration and also the lack of space.
21
22 As I said yesterday, one of the problems is that, well, it
23 was said with the calf then, but it is the same with
24 children, is it not? If you pack them all into a school,
25 you will get infection flying around, if you concentrate
26 unduly. These animals, if you are going to keep them
27 properly, are not going to be kept in what you might regard
28 as the worst sort of school, where the conditions are
29 unsanitary, where they have not got room to dung properly,
30 they tend to be animals that like to keep themselves clean,
31 they like to groom themselves, they like to have all those
32 matters if they are going to have a decent life, and then
33 I think the conditions you have described are certainly
34 uncongenial and aversive and objectionable.
35
36 Q. In terms of keeping them closely together or within a
37 confined space in a building, or whatever, are there any
38 implications for fighting that results from that?
39 A. Yes. They are territorial animals at the bottom of it
40 all. They have their version of pecking orders. That
41 causes a good deal of concern because, after all, if you
42 are mixing animals that are all sows, if you have all the
43 animals of one sex all bent on a similar activity, excited
44 to reproduce, they are young and they are actually
45 stimulated into this curious activity, they are excitable
46 and aggressive. They have not got much room to express
47 their individual requirements. So, they resort to various
48 forms of what the industry calls "vices" which would mean
49 biting one another, fighting. I regret you can see the
50 same sort of thing if you put human beings in similar
51 circumstances. Well, they will do just the same, but there
52 is not anybody there, for instance, to cure their wound
53 when they get that sort of trouble. They get bruised. So,
54 those conditions would conduce to that sort of thing.
55 Unfortunately, the less equal pigs -- I suppose that is
56 quite an appropriate analogy ----
57
58 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes, we do not want Animal Farm.
59 A. Sorry. The less equal pigs have not really got an
60 opportunity to escape. I think it is very important when
