Wanting to sell meat birds in NY

My husband and I are exploring the idea of raising cornish cross to sell. I have read the posts and am confused. I believe i have learned that you can sell birds after butcher but cant transport them. However i dont know what the New York laws and regulations.
I would also appreciate any advice in general. We are also looking to claim this on our taxes as income. Have currently have a 30 layers and 3 acre plot. We arent sure at what point we are considered to be a farm.

Hello from NY.....

Something's vary by county , but I'm pretty sure most of this is state wide even though the county's have different rules.

You can do 999 birds without an issue, that's a state mandated thing, if your processing the birds yourself. We have a state inspected processing facility 8 miles away that does all our birds, this way I have no limits or restrictions on how many birds we can do.

Next, as long as your selling, you can claim everything on your taxes. Income as well as expenses. This is kinda mixing federal and state but there are areas of deduction for all kinds of things, we get depreciation on all buildings, fences, and farm vehicles. All feed and anything used as farm supply is also allowed as well as mileage for obtaining equipment and supply's.

We have a $10,000 minimum income threshold that needs to be met inorder to change our assessment and claim our property as a farm. This is to stop people from getting a few chickens and trying to scam on their taxes.

All in all it's very easy to do business, just keep everything above board and you won't have any issues.

You also need to find your county/towns rules. Here we need 5 acres of 1 type (pasture or woodlands) of land excluding the area set aside for the house (meaning needing more than 5 acres to have 5 acres count) to be assessed as a farm. There are different rules for livestock keeping for farms vs non farms. Good to check that before you get too far along. While I might be able to keep a lot of chickens on a non farm, if my neighbors complain, I would be forced to get rid of my livestock. As a farm, I have legal rights to what I can do on my land even if my neighbors complain (thankfully my neighbors are farmers and have louder animals than I have!)

What resource did you use to find these rules?

ebeagle35 said:

What resource did you use to find these rules?

Click to expand...

Call your county office they will tell you what you need to know

I just googled. Some times it takes a few different combinations of words, but most governmental records are on line. Google your town and farming rights, farm laws, poultry laws etc. You should get good info. If you arent sure whether you are breaking a rule or not and call someone, make sure to keep it hypothetical.