UK Law change - all bird keepers must register their birds with DEFRA

[Nym]

and what exactly are your legal qualifications?
Be aware you are confusing people who will be affected by this and you may be misleading people into breaking the law when it is enacted. Which is highly irresponsible.

I don't need legal qualifications to read and understand the meaning of words in a Government document.

 

[Perris]

 

[Nym]

No Act!

 

[SpotTheCat]

Okay what I am very confused do I have to register my birds or can I choose not too???? Or do you not know???

Yes, you will have to. I haven't read through all of it but you had to register if you had other 50 birds, so it makes sense to me that they will change to be the same as for other livestock

Legislation is not law. Rule is not law. Mandate is not law. Requirement is not law. Regulation is not law. Only Act is law.

Umm....

reminder to everyone don't believe everything you read on the internet or hear from random strangers!

 

[AGeese]

Do not rely on strangers on websites. Look at the UK govt website linked originally
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-measures-to-help-protect-poultry-industry-from-bird-flu

Emboldened the important part. Of course it's always about protecting the big industry. Weather or not this is law or recommendation the real debate that should be going on is what it will mean down the road for you and your rights when Big industry feels threatened by backyard flocks.

 

[Perris]

Emboldened the important part. Of course it's always about protecting the big industry. Weather or not this is law or recommendation the real debate that should be going on is what it will mean down the road for you and your rights when Big industry feels threatened by backyard flocks.

yes it is (edited to add: supposedly) about protecting big producers. The real/official debate/consultation about it was last year, before implementation. The response, for anyone interested, is here
https://www.gov.uk/government/consu...r-captive-birds-registration-in-great-britain

I have been voluntarily registered since before H5N1 came along, and I get inspected by the APHA (Animal and plant health agency, govt body) and though big ag continually pointed their finger at backyard chicken keepers, the staff at APHA know their own biosecurity, or lack thereof, was the real issue. Further, my inspector's interpretation of the legislation and the guidance was very sensible throughout the avian flu epidemic.

And really it is over here now (a mere 10 wild birds found with it so far this year, handful of species, all waterfowl or predators https://assets.publishing.service.g...6001dfbdad7/ai-findings-2024-wk11.csv/preview ) plus one active case in a commercial flock.

 

[Burnsworthy]

I just heard about this today and signed up here as this seems to be where this is being discussed.

As someone who doesn't have much experience with chickens myself (though many in my social circle do), I'm not really sure why this is necessary? The stated reason which is to tighten up on disease control doesn't wash with me since unless they are planning to also increase the regulatory framework around small scale poultrykeeping (who will enforce this?) then it will just be business as usual e.g no change either way.

Do sub-50 flocks really make a difference to large poultry outfits?

In any case, this just raises the bar for keeping poultry at home in the UK, which I feel like there should be a moral argument against, frankly.

I'm also not sure about assuming the current generous interpretation of the rules will continue once everybody is being inspected. The old guard of decent, understanding-but-intelligent inspectors will retire and the new hires will be too overworked and underinitiated to do anything but enforce the rules to the letter. This is exactly what seems to have happened with the Environment Agency, at least near where I am.

 

[Perris]

I just heard about this today and signed up here as this seems to be where this is being discussed.

As someone who doesn't have much experience with chickens myself (though many in my social circle do), I'm not really sure why this is necessary? The stated reason which is to tighten up on disease control doesn't wash with me since unless they are planning to also increase the regulatory framework around small scale poultrykeeping (who will enforce this?) then it will just be business as usual e.g no change either way.

Do sub-50 flocks really make a difference to large poultry outfits?

In any case, this just raises the bar for keeping poultry at home in the UK, which I feel like there should be a moral argument against, frankly.

I'm also not sure about assuming the current generous interpretation of the rules will continue once everybody is being inspected. The old guard of decent, understanding-but-intelligent inspectors will retire and the new hires will be too overworked and underinitiated to do anything but enforce the rules to the letter. This is exactly what seems to have happened with the Environment Agency, at least near where I am.

It was the poultry industry that pushed for it. If it follows the pattern of other such regulation, it will be all paperwork and no action.

edited to add, welcome to BYC

further edited to add, there are hardly any APHA inspectors, and I cannot see them hiring enough newbies to add visits to all newly registered backyard keepers with 1 or more chickens in the garden (can you imagine what inspectors used to dealing with sheds of 30,000 think of this development?). Yes, it will put some people off keeping chickens, but it's really not a big deal when you get down to it, and if you inform yourself of what the rules actually are, rather than rely on headlines and witless / scaremongering on social media, you find they are not nearly as bad as they are often assumed to be.

 

[Burnsworthy]

It was the poultry industry that pushed for it. If it follows the pattern of other such regulation, it will be all paperwork and no action.

edited to add, welcome to BYC

further edited to add, there are hardly any APHA inspectors, and I cannot see them hiring enough newbies to add visits to all newly registered backyard keepers with 1 or more chickens in the garden (can you imagine what inspectors used to dealing with sheds of 30,000 think of this development?). Yes, it will put some people off keeping chickens, but it's really not a big deal when you get down to it, and if you inform yourself of what the rules actually are, rather than rely on headlines and witless / scaremongering on social media, you find they are not nearly as bad as they are often assumed to be.

Fairly said, and I do hope that that's the case. For sure I don't know enough to go into any detail. And thank you for the welcome. I certainly hope I don't buy into social media scaremongering, as a rule! My concern really is twofold:

a) Registration implies greater oversight. The previous regime seems to me to have two streams. The large ag business who are (rightly, though perhaps not effectively) held to strict standards on poultry welfare, which are designed for such large enterprises. Secondly, there are individuals and smallholders, who are trusted to inform themselves and maintain high standards, while recognising that they can't do things like the large businesses. Therefore they simply won't be able to stick to the same rules. From my (admittedly ignorant) perspective, combining these two streams makes it very difficult to distinguish legally between them, which (if not the case now) opens the door for further legislation applied equally which is impossible for smallholders to reasonably adhere to. It would not surprise me if this new rule led to a requirement for inspections, regardless of the sanity of such a move.

b) The current setup seems to me to in some way acknowledge the inherent right of an individual to keep functional livestock. It trusts that people are generally competent and able to make reasonable decisions when it comes to the welfare of their animals and the country as a whole, and acknowledges the risk of individual incompetence on such a scale is less than at the scale of a million 2 Sisters chickens in a shed. Obviously, this doesn't remove that right, but it does restrict it behind (gasp!) paperwork, and potentially at some point in the future it will be more than that, since small scale poultrykeepers are no longer distinct from ag business as far as this legislation is concerned. I have no idea whether that is true more broadly. A change which moves from acceptance of a right to a granting of permission, as this seems to, just rubs me the wrong way.

I hope that gets my point across. I do recognise my lack of knowledge and if you think I'm overstepping the mark, I'm willing to hear it.

 

[Shadrach]

The old guard of decent, understanding-but-intelligent inspectors will retire and the new hires will be too overworked and underinitiated to do anything but enforce the rules to the letter. This is exactly what seems to have happened with the Environment Agency, at least near where I am.

Most of the old guard in DEFRA and the local council (Bristol City) have already been moved from their posts or chucked in the towel.
We had one of the new boys come to the allotments last year to check on the chickens. He didn't even want to go in the run because he didn't like the look of the rooster. He sort of casually looked at the chickens asked a few stupid questions and when I tried to put a chicken in his hands so he could feel their weight and inspect them he almost ran.
I'll do the paperwork I suppose, but as you write, I'm not expecting much in the way of proper inspections and those people who have developed a relationship with the DEFRA inspectors in particular won't appreciate what seems to be coming as replacements.