Laws for selling chickens in Texas?

[the1much]

letter i received when i asked about eggs.
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Mr. Robinson,

The Texas Egg Law Rules are linked below. The department's authority is limited to chicken eggs. For information on exotic and domestic poultry and fowl please contact the Texas Animal Health Commission at 1-800-550-8242. In addition, it may also be a good idea to follow up with your local health department jurisdiction to ensure compliance.

Again, our authority is in the area of chicken eggs only.

producers of eggs who sell only the production of their own flocks without claiming any egg grade or size and without engaging in any previously defined egg marketing activity which would cause them to lose their identity as a producer, except that these producers are required to identify their eggs as "Produced by (producer's name)" and give their address;

http://info.sos.state.tx.us/pls/pub/readtac$ext.ViewTAC?tac_view=4&ti=4&pt=1&ch=15&rl=Y

Should you have any additional questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me directly at (512) 463-7401 or via email.


Sincerely yours,

Chris Drews
Coordinator for Weights & Measures, Eggs, and Aquaculture Programs
Texas Department of Agriculture
(512) 463-7401
[email protected]
www.tda.state.tx.us
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[Treg]

Quote:
but you do need the Exemption?
TX Admin Code
(C) A person shall not engage in exempted poultry or rabbit slaughter and processing operations unless that person has met the standards established by the Act, the federal regulations, and these sections, and has obtained a grant of poultry/rabbit exemption issued by the department.

Exemption Application Doesn't appear to be along form, but I also could not find any fees to send in with this....

 

[de88ie]

Does the health department need to come out to check before you start selling?

I know if you want to claim "Organic" there are more hoops to jump through.

 

[D3invertebrates]

Quote:
What complete BS, I dont care where you are in America you cant have sex with a bird its called animal abuse. I would have to assume your not from Texas. Ive been all over and it doesnt matter where in this world you go youll find that people everywhere wish they were lucky enough to be from this great state! Ok now, Im a chef and have raised birds to sell at restaurants and I know a couple of things about selling to a place like that. I know that it wasnt at all legal for instance, but I worry more about morals than law so I dont care. I was told that all food has to be packaged a certain way and can be only sold by certain places, we used to get local veg producers and guys with the back of there vehicles loaded with food come by to sell to us but they recently made it illegal. In fact the health and safety guy was being real uptight about it for awhile about 2 years ago we had to keep proof of where all our food came from. There was a time when I tried to follow the letter of the law regarding my birds but I soon found out that pretty much everything I was doing was illegal in one way or another. So thats when I just stopped caring about the law, as long as your a moral person who knows whats right why would you need anyone to tell you what to do? From the governments point of view anyone who raises there own food is taking tax money away from welfare recipients so why would they make it easy on us lol. But if you are planning to sell and want to be legal I would suggest contacting your local coop extension office ( http://www.csrees.usda.gov/Extension/ ) for the laws specific to your area, I even read an article recently that there having workshops to educate small scale producers( http://agrilife.org/today/2011/08/1...shop-for-exhibitors-and-commercial-producers/ ). Goodluck!

 

[DavidTeresa]

This is what I found on the rules for slaughtering fowl & rabbits; from what this says it is for everyone no matter the size there is one for the small producer.

Types of Grants of Inspection. DSHS issues three different Grants of Inspection. A Grant of Inspection is an authorization from DSHS to engage in a meat or poultry related business. A Grant of Inspection, sometimes referred to as full inspection, is required for operations that slaughter and/or process livestock for intrastate commerce. Individuals or businesses that slaughter and/or process livestock for the owner of the livestock, for the personal use of the owner, are required to obtain a Grant of Custom Exemption. Individuals that produce low volume poultry or rabbits and wish to slaughter and process them for sale are required to obtain either a Grant of Poultry/Rabbit Exemption or a Grant of Inspection.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

So if you sell the chicken to your customer on the hoof and process it for them yourself, then what is the rule?

Is a New York Dressed bird any less of a hassle than a fully processed chicken?

With all the hoopla and who shot John today about organics, localvores, and sustainability couldn't one sell a New York Dressed chicken for much more than a Tyson Brand chicken wrapped up in nice clean Cellophane and call it "Pollo el Paleo del Pullets?" The number of rediculous PC names is endless.

 

[yardbird432]

Great conversation y'all, thanks for all the insight

 

[parttime]

I understand the rules now for selling processed chickens here in Texas, but what about selling live chickens?

 

[DavidTeresa]

On the selling of Chicks, Chickens and fertile eggs to the general public you can check out the Texas Administrative Code Chapter 54 and some in Chapter 57.

My understanding is if the purchaser picks these up at the farm you do not have to be inspected. Any sells off of the farm you will have to be inspected and certified by the State of Texas. You will also need to keep records on the purchaser of the products (chickens and Fertile Eggs).

On the subject of selling a chicken to someone and then assisting with the butchering, you can get an exemption to do this (Grant of Custom Exemption) because the buyer owns the chicken you donot. Please see my post from earlier.

Hope this helps, I am not a lawyer and some of the rules were wrote by lawyers so it can be confusing.

 

[DavidTeresa]

All of the rules that were put into place in Texas was to protect the large poultry farms from outside diseases and such. Of course the consumer was thought of also. Pullorum-Typhoid Clean'' ("PT") and Avian Influenza Clean" ("LPAI") are the diseases they are watching for.