133 posts to catch up on, will do that later. Just want to say the classes yesterday were very informative! met a lot of nice people, some of you were there, and Nancy gave an invite for all to join, hope to see some new posters!!! Sorry Daran missed it, I think you would have enjoyed it. They had slides to go with every talk, so you could read as well as listen plus MANY hand-outs. Chickengrandma, got copies and plans to get them to Daran. I think that if there is something specific you are interested in and they know in advance they will discuss that topic. I knew nothing about Pullorum so the AM class was very informative for me, and we got to test live birds.All in All I think it was well worth the $$ and I hope more of you can go next year.
Have an appt. in GR at 9AM with Soc. Sec. so Good morning to all and have a wonderful sunny day. will catch up later.
Thanks for all the information that you and Chicken Grandma brought back. I didn't have a chance to update yesterday, but I attended the MRTFA session on Monday. Here's my summary:
DISCLAIMER: This is my personal opinion of the events based on what I observed.
Started out odd, apparently there was a mix-up in the time of the session and even though the presenter knew what time was published (12 - 5pm), decided that he wasn't going to come until 1pm (?). There were 9 people in attendance at the session. No introductions of the attendees, but based on questions/comments, it seemed half were representing local government and the other half were small/homestead type farmers.
The presenters (another agent came about halfway through the session) started out by giving a brief overview of the history of RTFA and what the act was originally intended to do. They did a really good job of avoiding giving a direct answer to most of the questions presented by the small farmers/those wanting to start farming. A lot of the information presented was within the context of large commercial farms while most of the questions were about small homestead-type operations.
One attendee who represented local goverment asked directly about backyard chickens and how MRTFA was going to address that issue. The round-about answer was it was a local government issue and RTFA would not protect someone who was zoned residential. (Not sure if I completely agree with this "simple" answer based on the unpublished cases I have read.) The agents stated multiple times that when they get a call about MRTFA, the first question they ask is "what is your zoning?"
A number of questions were asked around a situation of the zoning being changed on a family farm from agricultural to residential and how that would affect the farm being brought back into operation. The sense I got was that they didn't want to directly answer because there are a number of backyard chicken/residential farm issues that are being pushed to be addressed in a revision to MRTF. Getting a straight answer was sort of like nailing jello to the wall.
The one agent did make reference to this site. He said something along the lines of Just because you read it on the internet doesn't make it true. There is a lot of MRTFA information put out on Backyard Chickens but we don't endorse that site.
The interesting part is that all except 2 people inferred they were familiar with this site....and that this site is where they got the information about the session.
Overall, we got some good info about GAAMPs, would have liked more definitive yes/no answers, know a LOT more about manure management now that I ever thought I would.
My coworkers marvel at the different colors so much that they save the eggs they buy from me to eat for special occasions (ie Sunday Breakfast or When they have guests). Wait until they see the Marans eggs. Heh Heh... I am defineately not charging enough.
