Day 290 - 30 Oct 96 - Page 05

     
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     2   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I understand what you are saying.
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     4   MS. STEEL:   Basically, that because of the way they are kept
     5        they have got such a problem with walking, and,
     6        effectively, she says they are hardly like chickens at
     7        all.  She said they are engineered, not genetically, but
     8        they are an engineered species, they have been selected
     9        ruthlessly, selected simply for fast growth.  That was day
    10        108, page 39, line 39.
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    12        Also, in general about broiler houses, she said that there
    13        was no environmental interest for the birds, there are no
    14        perches, the light is very, very dim, and the whole system
    15        is geared simply to keeping them quiet, not killing each
    16        other, to fatten up fast.  She said it is in no way geared
    17        to the lifestyle of the chicken or any kind of pleasure or
    18        enjoyment or natural behaviour.  And that day 108, page 40,
    19        line 10.  And obviously that would contravene the five
    20        freedoms which I think both sides in this case have
         accepted should be the standards that are minimum.
    22
    23        I am not sure which order you have got - which one you have
    24        got, in what order?
    25
    26   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  You just carry on, if you follow what -----
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    28   MS. STEEL:   It is the short one.
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    30   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes.  Is that Clare Druce in her opinion?
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    32   MS. STEEL:   Yes.  In her opinion, welfare problems were due to
    33        thinking only of profit and quick growth and quick profit
    34        with no regard whatsoever for the behavioural patterns or
    35        needs or the feelings of the birds.  That was day 108, page
    36        36, line 35.
    37
    38        I am not sure what that second note is.  It probably means
    39        that it relates -- I seem to have chopped off something in
    40        the middle of it.  Oh, yes, I asked her about Sun Valley,
         the practices at Sun Valley.  This is on day 109, page 27,
    42        and it starts at line 50.  I asked her:  "Would you say
    43        that a company that ignored the Codes of Practice regarding
    44        minimum lighting levels, maximum stocking densities, the
    45        recommendations for either stun killing or cutting both
    46        carotid arteries, and not having a visible readily
    47        accessible ammeter on the stunning equipment could be said
    48        to have high standards of animal welfare, or the highest
    49        standards of animal welfare?"  That, obviously, relates to
    50        the quote which was referred to which is published in 
    51        McDonald's literature in a number of places where they said 
    52        they only deal with companies with high standards of animal 
    53        welfare.  She said: "No, I would think it all suggested
    54        that they were putting through-put and economics ahead of
    55        animal welfare."
    56
    57        She went into her own research work with rearing battery
    58        chickens and broiler chickens in quite a bit of detail, and
    59        she concluded that as a result of this research work she
    60        had concluded that chickens' ancestral patterns are never,