Well, If It’s Good Enough For The Potato Farmers…

A few chickens clucking in the back garden provide fresh eggs every morning, more money in your pocket and a little taste of the Good Life. But the 500,000 households across Britain now keeping their own flocks could also pose a major health threat to the poultry industry. Veterinary experts say many of us keeping chickens at home have little understanding of how to control disease in the birds, along with insufficient knowledge of health regulations. They warn this could hasten the spread of disease from backyard flocks to commercial poultry farms.

Gosh! Sound familiar..?

It ought to! It’s the exact same tactic tried recently by the potato farmers!

A survey by the Royal Veterinary College found most back garden flock owners provided their birds with good living conditions. But 75 per cent did not comply with Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs regulations which outlaw birds being fed on kitchen waste. Farmers have been banned from feeding such waste to chickens since 2001, because some agents of disease can survive in household food products.

Yes, they have.

But there’s nothing to stop the homeowner feeding chickens whatever he wants, since the regulations referred to only apply if you are selling the eggs in bulk. Most families keeping chickens are doing so for their own consumption, or that of their friends and relatives.

The survey, published this month in the journal of British Poultry Science, also found lapses in biosecurity, with very few owners keeping human visitors, wild birds and rodents away from their flocks. Few properly vaccinated their birds.

Sensing, perhaps, that this isn’t going to be enough to strike the right level of fear and therefore compliance, they try the ‘Think of the chiiiillldreeen!’ tactic:

Keeping chickens is also a major risk factor for diarrhoea in children since the birds’ droppings can contain the disease agent campylobacter jejuni. More than a third of the chicken keepers surveyed had children, which highlights the risk posed to families.

YOU’RE KILLING YOUR KIDS!!!!!

So, what’s the answer to this grave crisis about to strike the nation? Well, would you believe, making Mr & Mrs Smith compliant with the same regulations as Farmer Giles?

Study co-author Iveta Karabozhilova called for greater regulation of back garden chickens and more communication between householders and health officials.

Yeah, I'll just bet. You can take the sex and travel option, love.

Can New Legislation Fix This?

I'm doubtful:

Thousands of horses and ponies face being abandoned or suffering from neglect as irresponsible breeding, spiralling bills, and rockbottom sale prices take their toll, according to six leading equine welfare organisations.

And guess what they want to help prevent this? That’s right!

The organisations are calling for legislation that will enable them to more quickly identify owners and punish them with fines and the seizure of animals for fly-grazing.

Hmmm, now, maybe it’s me, but surely all horses require a ‘Equine Passport’? Tattooing, etc? Shouldn't that be the thing that identifies owners?

Surely…the answer couldn't be that people aren't complying with it?

Right! I know what’ll fix this! More legislation!

…

…

What..?

Look, You Amateurs, Just Leave It To Us Professionals, M’Kay?

The Potato Council said the fungal disease, that manifests itself as a mould on the leaf and roots, has hit the potato crop badly this year due to the wet weather.

And if it wasn't wet weather, it’d be dry weather. Or hot weather. Or cold weather. For as long as I can remember, there’s always been something affecting something else, every year, as an excuse for price rises.

But it seems a brand new scapegoat has been found:

‘Allotment amateurs’ were also blamed for a "disproportionate amount of overall blight pressure."

Inexperienced gardeners could make blight spread by dumping infected potatoes on the compost, where the spores can spread on the wind to neighbouring farms.

*shakes fist* "You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!"

It seems those awful amateurs are lax with their pesticide regime as well (surely a another reason one might want to grow their own?):

In contrast commercial farms regularly spray the crop with fungicide to stop infection and bury any infected potatoes.

Naturally, this is very regrettable, and should stop. Says the pressure group for commercial potato farmers:

Allan Stevenson, Chairman of the Potato Council, told trade journal The Grocer, that people should be buying potatoes from the supermarket rather than growing their own as this may help spread blight.

Well, yes. You would say that, wouldn't you?

"People should be encouraged to grown their own vegetables to learn about the origins of their food,” he said.

"But the blight risk is real and it would be preferable if people bought healthy, well produced potatoes from their retailer rather than grow their own."

Preferable for your members’ pockets, you mean?

A spokesman for NSALG insisted that their members were aware of how to deal with blight and it was unfair to 'tarnish everyone with the same brush".

“People being able to grow their own should be celebrated," she said.

"Like everything else people should be supported and educated about the right and wrong ways to deal with things but I would say our members are fairly well educated in knowing how to deal with pests and diseases. It is unfair to tarnish everybody with the same brush.”

Unfair, yes, but when you have a captive market to protect, every little helps, hmm?