Yes, you cannot have more than 100 birds to be considered a backyard flock and trying to get a commercial NPIP cert. would be difficult due to other regulations.
I have 150 birds and told them that I could get down to perhaps 130 and they said they could not make an exceptions since there are others in my situations and they would need to then accept them as well. I am not at all knocking the program. Our local representative is great and I know she wants to be helpful but I think her hands are kinda tied. I am not sure about other states but the NPIP program in Calif. has to fight for their budget every year. In order to test 100 birds they would need to send out multiple testers and they simply do not have the staff.
Regarding VA NPIP, others states have regulations but VA and HI are the only 2 ( I know of) that require paper work.
Also, I typically hatch 500-800 chicks a year so any bird un-tested needs to be kept 100 feet from the tested flock and cannot be integrated with the flock until they are 4 months old and have been tested. Therefore, if I hatch birds in January, they would been to be kept apart from my other birds until let say July when they come through to retest the flock. They only test once a year so planning the hatches and growing out birds 100 feet from the main flock for several months has its challenges.
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