Backyard chickens need more regulation: Safety of birds and people at stake

[centrarchid]

Follow link.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/03/180302124837.htm

 

[SunHwaKwon]

(sigh)

 

[lazy gardener]

Foolish Uncle Sam fear mongering and drivel to attempt to keep the masses from becoming self sufficient.

 

[SunHwaKwon]

I went to graduate school for public Health and I am completely embarrassed by that. It undoubtedly had it's role in our society/the world, but it's to the point that it's like an overbearing mother that thinks all her children are idiots (granted, there are a lot of idiots out and about these days).

 

[HoopyFrood]

An all-too unsurprising academic view of a non-academic topic. I would bet money the UC Davis author has never raised chickens.

The punchline? A person who has likely never raised chickens is recommending a vast, inefficient body of people who have also never raised chickens impose and enforce laws informed by unnatural methods of raising chickens (factory farming) onto people who actually do raise chickens - and are likely the only ones doing it under more-or-less "natural" conditions.

The problems with backyard flocks are chicken keepers who have not educated themselves sufficiently in the art of chicken keeping. The answers to those problems lie in education and outreach (facilitated by entities like the BYC community), not top-down mandates from ignorant academics and bureaucrats. But they have to justify their vocations somehow. Lucky us

 

[Peppercorngal]

That's California for ya. . .Our hippie governor passed a law against the dairy farmers but the big oil companies can pollute all they like. They are in his pocket. And he's a vegetarian. http://www.newser.com/story/231361/cow-farts-can-now-be-regulated-in-california.html

 

[JedJackson]

Follow link.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/03/180302124837.htm

I think these people probably have good intentions but I don't think they really understand the point of back yard chickens. Vaccinations are something that many of us want to get away from and so are antibiotics. It's the small, non-commercial flocks that develop natural immunity to diseases and don't need regular antibiotics, and it's these birds that we will turn to in the future if the vaccines and antibiotics become ineffective. For me, rules and regulations governing the keeping of chickens are sufficient as they are in most cases. But in those cases where there is abuse or there is a health hazard, I think other agencies should be able to cover it. The SPCA, the Health Department, etc. We have rules and regulations for a wide variety of pets and I don't see that we need to treat the keeping of chickens much differently than the keeping of dogs or cats or parrots.

 

[centrarchid]

I am seeing this as a pathway to squeeze little guys out through regulation. Conditions my birds operate in are cleaner than those supporting large scale commercial producers of meat and eggs. I am also partial to genuinely free-range meat and egg products because they do taste different at the very least and if trend follows that of pasture raised cattle, then nutrient profile should be better as well.

 

[SunHwaKwon]

I am seeing this as a pathway to squeeze little guys out through regulation. Conditions my birds operate in are cleaner than those supporting large scale commercial producers of meat and eggs. I am also partial to genuinely free-range meat and egg products because they do taste different at the very least and if trend follows that of pasture raised cattle, then nutrient profile should be better as well.

There is a proposal for the Maryland NPIP to require all solid walls, ie no exposure to the outside ever, of course for biosecurity and our health. No separate rules for commercial operations and those of us that are NPIP for showing or because the new rules say we have to be NPIP to even sell a bird or hatching eggs to the guy down the road.

 

[Chickassan]

I feel like my brain needs triple ply toilet paper after reading that.