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Chicken Law

Ben H

Well-known member
Maybe a ranch topic, maybe not, definitely political, but I'm putting it here.

Maine has decided to change the laws on chicken processing, they have a proposed set of rules for the legislature to vote on then I am very opposed to. As it stands now, anyone killing less then 1000 birds is exempt from needing certain facilities. They can have a license to process on the farm and sell from the farm, at farmers markets and I believe to restaurants. The new law wants to test their water, require a septic tank or sewer hookup, and here's the bad part, a two room facility. One room for killing, one for processing, stainless steel surfaces and everything.

A friend sent a letter to one of the papers about this which included contacts for the State employee in charge. I not so nice email about the direction the state is going. This is a direct opposition to the local food movement and is trying to change something that's been done for centuries. Anyway, come to find out that State employee contacted one of our Senators because they are under pressure from the Federal government to do this, so it turns out that this is actually a State's rights issue.

"Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control the people." ~Henry Kissinger
 

High Plains

Well-known member
Ben, you likely know a lot more about this than I do. I have never humanely harvested :wink: a chicken, and don't want to start now. However, it does stand to reason that any business that harvests an animal and then processes and sells it to the public as meat should render the animal dead in one room and process in yet another. Am I missing something, or is this not common sense for basic reasons of sanitation? I'm sure I can't make a proper judgement on the 1,000 bird exemption. The other part just seems right to me. Am I totally mistaken??

HP
 

Ben H

Well-known member
Joel Salatin does a good ob on this issue in his book "Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal, War Stories From The Local Food Front." I personally don't process any birds at this time but I want to keep my options open. In the video Food Inc. you can see video of Salatin's processing facility. It's open air, no walls. It works fine and nobody has gotten sick.
 

cowhunter

Well-known member
My granny use to let us youngins ring the necks and she scalded them. All in the yard. Then she'd take the whole operation to a cast iron sink. Them the cat's would gather and have a feast. They would not get that liver or gizard though. That was saved for fryin or cut up fine in some chickin and rice or dumplins. We never caught no clap or coodys form this style of butcherin.
 

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