Day 088 - 13 Feb 95 - Page 10
1 A. I would call them very clean animals.
2
3 Q. Very clean animals. When a pig goes to the lavatory --
4 take the ones on the left, the weaners -- where does it do
5 its business? Does it do it in the straw outside or does
6 it go inside or what does it do?
7 A. A pig very definitely will have a sleeping and lying
8 area which he will not muck in, and he will have a drinking
9 area and a feeding area, and he will also have an area
10 where he mucks in. If I can try to explain with these
11 kennels, the actual runs on the front are longer and you
12 would see, if that was, there would be a photograph of the
13 mucking area, but it does not make necessarily a very good
14 photograph.
15
16 Q. Are pigs sociable animals?
17 A. Very.
18
19 Q. Do they enjoy being in groups like this?
20 A. Yes.
21
22 Q. To what extent, if any, do you make an attempt to keep
23 groups of pigs together for any length of time?
24 A. Once we have weaned the pigs and we put them in the
25 kennels, we will have them in those kennels until they are
26 40 or 30 kilograms and then those pigs will remain together
27 for the rest of their lives.
28
29 Q. So they will be transported together?
30 A. Correct, and never mixed.
31
32 Q. Will they be slaughtered in groups, as it were,
33 until -----
34 A. In the peer groups as they come from the farms, that is
35 what we try to do with our own farms, yes, sir.
36
37 Q. There is a better picture of some kind of lorries on the
38 last page, inside page, you see those?
39 A. Yes, sir.
40
41 Q. It looks as though it is taken at night or early in the
42 morning, perhaps. Are those for transporting pigs or meat?
43 A. Meat.
44
45 Q. Are they chilled?
46 A. Yes.
47
48 Q. I am going to take you through the welfare considerations,
49 as I said, in more detail in a moment, Mr. Bowes, but first
50 I would like to deal with the hygiene side of your
51 business. How many microbiological tests do you think are
52 done on your premises during the course of an ordinary
53 working day?
54 A. We do random tests about, roughly in the order of 20,
55 25 a day.
56
57 Q. At which stages do you test the meat?
58 A. We will test it, obviously, in the dressing area to
59 check the expertise of our slaughtermen, and then we will
60 test again in the chill rooms after the carcass has been
