I've battled this all spring. You wouldn't have believed how shocked we were when we saw the state guy's truck at our first swap. It was like going fishing and have a DNR officer standing over your shoulder. He handed us a sheet of regulations and said these HAVE to be met. Some is understandable. Half of the crap was just for the sake of paperwork to keep some government guy's job. Like this.....waterfowl have never had to been tested for showing purposes because they aren't affected by PT like landfowl is. So why all of a sudden are we testing them for a disease that they don't even have to worry about? Also have you ever tried to keep a band on a duck or goose? Vet couldn't answer us on that one. Another good question brought up by the president of the MSPA..... pigeons are not considered poultry, so why do they have to be tested and banded as well? They don't even fall under the category of livestock.
I now have the MPTL and state vet's private cell phone number on speed dial on my cell phone. My mom and brother have been certified testors for a few years and I had always thought that was good enough. Came to find out I couldn't legally sell chicks this year without a hatchery permit or proof that the whole flock was tested. Well getting my mom out there for a whole day of catching birds and bloodtesting was not fun. If you include all our peacocks, ducks, geese, pheasants, chickens, etc you are talking close to 400-500 birds total. I figured I had gone that far and might as well just apply for the dang permit. Vet eventually comes out and inspects everything. Gets even better..... Up til then the location of my farm has not been broadcasted anywhere. I live in town and that is the only address given out to people. A few weeks after the NPIP paperwork was complete, I had someone break into my barn and steal some of my best show birds. Same thing happened to a friend of mine a few weeks later. Her farm site was only available through NPIP too. So now I'm in a no win situation. If I want to legally sell stock, and the majority of my sales are out of state, then I have to be certified. If I'm certified my info becomes public. Ughhhh. Got 2 guard dogs, motion lights, a new rifle, game cameras.....
chickenaddict....when you get your birds tested at a swap, you will probably get the pink or yellow copy off the PT paperwork. This is your copy as proof that those birds are disease free. You really have no way of passing paperwork on to the buyers unless you go make copies quick. I suppose if you sell out all of them to just 1 buyer you could just give them your copy. If you have multiple buyers, you are stuck. We run into this down here more. We often time get buyers from SD or IA up for our swaps. Well to cross the borders back into their state with livestock they have to have paperwork on them. That's why the NPIP stuff is nice. I have a little book of signed forms already in my hands. When someone buys from me I fill out a form with both our addresses, variety of birds, how many, etc. It is also their copy that their stock is from a NPIP flock and disease free.
Those forms are also there to protect you as a seller. After one of the swaps, I sent in a whole envelope full of forms to the MPTL. I got a phone call the next monday and they said that I really didn't need to fill them out on in-state sales. No???? After I argued my point they agreed and said just keep sending them. First of all that is the buyer's proof that they got healthy birds from you. Secondly that is your proof of selling to them too. Say by chance someone does have a batch of sick birds and they try to pin it on you. Well what if you never sold anything to this person and they are just trying to cause trouble for you? This way I have documentation of everyone I've sold to including the breed, age, etc. Those slips are kept in my files and by the state too. All I would have to do is look back and have proof that I have never sold to this person.
