Starting a breeding/hatching flock - questions about NPIP, legal protocol

wordgirl

One of the Shire-folk
12 Years
Apr 14, 2009
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I'm hoping to start a flock of Ancona ducks (a breed listed under critical status according to the ALBC - http://www.albc-usa.org/cpl/waterfowl/ancona.html) and I've been thinking about selling hatching eggs, but I haven't ever done that before and was wondering - what all goes into that?

Is it required/helpful to be NPIP certified - and how do you go about that? Are there any other legal/government things you have to do before you can ship hatching eggs?

Thanks!
 
It would help if you would give your state in case there is state specific stuff for you.

NPIP is a federal program but it is run by the individual states, so it works a bit differently in each state.

Basically, a certified tester comes out and blood tests all your birds and swabs your incubators and brooders. If everything passes, you get an NPIP number. Then you can not bring any new birds that are not from an NPIP breeder or source onto your property without getting tested again. You can bring in birds, chicks, and eggs from another certified NPIP breeder with no problems with your certificate.

You will get a print-out about whatever rules your state has about bio-security.

You can not legally ship birds across state lines without an NPIP number. I know a lot of people are shipping eggs that are not certified, so perhaps that is OK. Or, at minimum, if it is not legal, no one is checking.

Any breeder who is NPIP will not (can not) buy from you if you are not certified. Which probably isn't an issue unless you are selling quality stock. I can't imagine a certified breeder wanting to buy eggs from pet quality birds.
 
The Federal Government only controls what is shipped across state lines. I'm not sure they have NPIP requirements for shipments across state lines, but maybe just help set up the individual state's programs. I'm not sure about that, but I'm sure they have a lot more requirements than NPIP for people to bring in hatching eggs from other countries.

Each state has its own requirements. I believe two states choose to not participate in NPIP. I think Hawaii is one and they have a different program in place. The Federal part of the program is only about Pullorum-Typhoid (spelling?). Some of the states have additional requirements or give you the option to take it a step or two further. So you need to check what your state's requirements are. But you also need to check what the requirements are of the state you are shipping to. They can be different. For example, Virginia had an extra requirement for testing so some hatcheries did not ship live chicks to Virginia. They don't have the lab testing requirement for that specific requirement. Last I read about that, Virginia was looking at maybe dropping that additional requriement. These things change.

How important is NPIP? Pullorum used to be a fairly common chicken disease. After NPIP became well established, it became really rare. It is not totally eradicated, but it is now pretty rare in the USA.

A good place to start to find your state's requirements is probably your county extension agent, in the phone book under county government. The agent should be able to put you in touch with the right people in state government, whatever that department might be called in your state. Some agents are better than others, but they should also be able to put you in touch with the right people from other states so you can find out what their requirements are so you can ship to them.
 
Thank you three so much! That is really helpful!

Oregon Blues, what if you don't have an incubator when they test you, and you get one afterward? Do they have to test that again for your certification to be valid?

Since there are other requirements for shipping state-to-state, is it really hard to legally ship hatching eggs across state lines?
 
Are you getting a new incubator or a used one?

If it is new, there is no issue about it. If it is used, sterilize it really well and have the tester out to swab it before you use it. You don't want to be hatching eggs in an infected incubator, anyway.

If you want to be a breeder and sell chicks and eggs to trusting buyers, you are going to have to be very careful about sanitation and about preventing infectious disease.

If you google NPIP and the name of your state, you should be able to find your state's regulations and be able to contact whoever is in charge of the program and ask questions about what is legal for you locally.
 

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