Is NC Requiring Barcodes for Backyard Chicken Owners?

Heather Callaghan

Natural Blaze

Posted to Natural Blaze on July 23, 2015 

The North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services is using the Midwestern poultry avian flu outbreak as an opportunity to decree new requirements for chicken farmers. These newly released rules - in case of a potential event - have prompted small family farms, and backyard chicken owners to wonder how cozy the Ag Commission wants to be - and what happens if a quarantine is declared.

9 WNCT News reports:

All poultry owners are now required to register for an NC Farm ID number, regardless of the number of birds owned.

This ID number will help the department to alert poultry owners about outbreaks. 

Owners can register online after August 1.

It's that word "regardless" that has people talking. Seriously - NCFarmID for one or two chickens? NCFarmID regardless. Some backyard chicken owners already don't appreciate what they feel is an invasive mandate. 

The Ag Department issued a press release. The designated information area specifically for backyard chickens reads:

NC Farmer Exposes Perdue Farms For Animal Cruelty and False Advertising

Brandon Turbeville
Activist Post
February 3, 2015

Despite the close relationship between government and Big Agri manifesting itself in the passage of a number of “Ag Gag” laws across the country, the knowledge that animals raised in Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) are treated in absolutely horrific ways should, by now, be relatively common. Yet the images produced from a visit to these operations never cease to be shocking to those who are finally confronted with it.

The images coming from a Fairmont, North Carolina poultry farm were no exception to the rule in terms of the poor conditions of the animals housed there. However, what was an exception to the rule was the way in which the film was obtained – by the invitation of the farmer, not by a covert agent of the animal rights movement.

Craig Watts, the contract farmer for Perdue farms, reached out to animal welfare organization Compassion in World Farming after pangs of conscience could no longer be ignored. His change of heart occurred after watching a commercial in which the president of Perdue stated that “Doing the right thing is things like treating your chickens humanely.”

If doing the right thing is treating your chickens humanely, then Perdue farms is clearly doing the wrong thing. This much is evidenced by the video that was produced after taking a walk across Watts’ contracted Perdue operation.

The chickens, which can be seen in the video below, are undeniably suffering under horrific conditions. Most of them have lost their feathers as well as having exposed and open wounds on their underbellies caused by their lack of ability to move. These chickens are often deformed as a result of the farm conditions and/or breeding techniques. Others are weakened by their abnormally large breasts and the fact that they have virtually no free space in which to move.