Washingtonians Come Together! Washington Peeps

[Espresso]

This is how I read large paragraphs!!!

Haha. Me too. Makes it easier not to lose your place.

 

[jbkirk]

The guy from our city code enforcement told me in the spring that I need a business license to sell birds and eggs.

Just go to the city office and ask them to show you on the books(they'll most likely never find it).

 

[Ashley Stroud]

I have BBS English Orpingtons and I am taking a break from hatching until I get my flock reduced following my spring and summer hatches. I wanted to keep splash only but of course I have a bunch of blue and black Orpingtons out of my black rooster and a bunch of blue Orpingtons out of my blue rooster. Then I ended up with a couple diluted splash out of the splash hens I sold but they look like roosters and I already have a group of roosters that need to go. The Orpington hens are so sweet but the roosters tend to get aggressive once they hit breeding age and start fighting over the girls.

The guy from our city code enforcement told me in the spring that I need a business license to sell birds and eggs so I have limited my sales to just a few roosters at a time except when people contact me specifically for pullets or hens. Has anyone else ever been told they need a business license to sell chicks and eggs? I ended up raising far more birds this year to avoid selling them but it looks like I will be taking roosters to the auction since that does not require a business license. I had not planned on keeping so many pullets but there is no way I will take them to the auction when they have a long life ahead of them. I may just have to move them out to the barn where we keep the horses and risk having the bobcats or eagles get them.

If anyone wants winter chicks, I can hatch more but for now we are just eating the eggs and I am taking a break from hatching. I have hatched the past few winters in order to have spring layers but I have to keep chicks inside far longer when it is cold and rainy. I always have people asking me for hatching eggs but I have not had as much success hatching eggs I get from other people while I hatch my own right next to them with no problems. I don't want to risk my reputation if someone has a bad hatch for any reason because I have learned that people will blame me for their mistakes. I don't know if the eggs get shaken during transport but I stopped buying hatching eggs and only hatch my own now. The chicks I hatched from other people were never as nice as my own anyway and I have more eggs than I can hatch so I don't need any more.

The forced air fan on one of my Little Giant incubators stopped working so I bought a lightly used forced air Farm Innovators incubator (I love it when people use them once and sell them for half price) and have not even plugged it in to calibrate it yet. I could probably sell it and stick with my tried and true Little Giant incubators that I have used successfully for many years. The still air incubators work great for hatching ducklings and thankfully I have a break from ducklings until March. I can always add a fan kit to a still air incubator for chicken eggs but they cost as much as the incubator and they don't seem to hold up very long. I hatched some Orpington chicks in a still air incubator and ended up with a couple of foot deformities so I will only use forced air for chicken eggs. The Silkie eggs I hatched in the still air incubator produced a couple tiny weak chicks (although they could have been from a very young hen or ones I got from a friend) so it is not worth it to me to hatch anything when they have problems.

DuckDrover, your birds are all so beautiful, well cared for, and HEALTHY! Thank you again for letting me come visit this past summer and the lil Cochin roo I got from you is doing great! He cracks us up and has the best personality--very sweet with us and the hens. I'll see if I can find a pic of him somewhere here... We named him The Dude since he's so laid back

 

[CharterChick]

In my area I can sell eggs from my farm as long as I have less than 1000 chickens.... I KNOW I'll never get that crazy! Lol I'm with jbkirk. Ask them to show you where it says you need a license to sell eggs/birds.

 

[ochochicas]

According to what I read, you are only regulated by the USDA if you have more than 3000 birds. You need to be licensed if you are supplying eggs to a restaurant/retail store/farmers market/etc. I'm just selling my eggs to people at work. Not making any money but it does pay for the chicken feed. There seems to be a huge demand for eggs that come from happy chickens. A lady I volunteer with is paying $6 per dozen for "organic" eggs from her butcher.

 

[Hinotori]

The guy from our city code enforcement told me in the spring that I need a business license to sell birds and eggs so I have limited my sales to just a few roosters at a time except when people contact me specifically for pullets or hens. Has anyone else ever been told they need a business license to sell chicks and eggs? I ended up raising far more birds this year to avoid selling them but it looks like I will be taking roosters to the auction since that does not require a business license. I had not planned on keeping so many pullets but there is no way I will take them to the auction when they have a long life ahead of them. I may just have to move them out to the barn where we keep the horses and risk having the bobcats or eagles get them.

The guy doesn't know what he's talking about. Washington State doesn't require a license for off farm sales of eggs. http://agr.wa.gov/FoodAnimal/Eggs/ You don't need one to sell a few live animals either. Cattle have to have the brand checked before sale.


ETA he's code enforcement? He doesn't even deal with that type of thing.

 

[tajuano]

I have been to the local animal action, got some geese for meat, it is seems to me that a lot of people buy poultry there, what do you think, is it wise to buy a rooster that I can have for breeding my ladies. I do have two blue bantam cochins, they do a good job, but they are bantams.

 

[Hinotori]

I have been to the local animal action, got some geese for meat, it is seems to me that a lot of people buy poultry there, what do you think, is it wise to buy a rooster that I can have for breeding my ladies. I do have two blue bantam cochins, they do a good job, but they are bantams.

There is a huge risk of bringing a disease into your from from auction birds. I wouldn't do it personally.

 

[Duck Drover]

The guy doesn't know what he's talking about. Washington State doesn't require a license for off farm sales of eggs. http://agr.wa.gov/FoodAnimal/Eggs/  You don't need one to sell a few live animals either. Cattle have to have the brand checked before sale. 


ETA  he's code enforcement? He doesn't even deal with that type of thing. 

He is incompetent in so many ways! He thinks chickens and ducks are small animals rather than birds so he has told me that there is a limit of 3 when the code specifies that birds are only limited by the space of the area to which they are confined. King County code is more clear than our code because it lists chickens specifically while our code does not include the words chicken, poultry, duck, waterfowl, etc. anywhere in the code. There is a section for birds and birds are birds as far as I am concerned, not small animals. He told me that I need a business license to sell anything from my property but I am sure that is not true because he clearly does not know what he is talking about. He thinks that bird sales and egg sales fall under a pet related business but it does not according to the definition of a pet related business. When I asked for clarification he stomped off and would not answer my questions so I knew he did not know what he was talking about.

 

[ochochicas]

There is a huge risk of bringing a disease into your from from auction birds. I wouldn't do it personally.

I wouldn't buy from there either, unless your sole purpose is to isolate the birds and then process them immediately. You are much better off paying a few extra bucks and getting a rooster from a breeder or even craigslist. There are lots of roosters for free on craigslist. Just saw a cutie little bantam last night that the owner is looking to sell or trade for something in the $10 - $15 value range. I just sold 2 roosters for $5. They will likely be processed, but they didn't have to go through the drama of the auction and the new owner knows they came from a clean facility.

There are also a couple of Washington poultry sites on Facebook.