November 12, 2009...4:11 pm

Doing the funky chicken

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I’m a bit perplexed by the stories today about Viscountess Dilhorne, who was visited by Defra inspectors to look at her 29 laying hens for compliance with the EC Laying Hens Directive. Our Directive only applies if you have more than 350 hens, exactly to avoid this sort of thing. But these are minimum standards, and individual Member States can go further. I contacted Defra, but not having heard back, checked out the UK regulations myself, in case it was a classic case of “gold-plating”. And from what I can tell, they take the EU minimum of 350 hens. So why this lady had a visit from the Defra inspectors (and let’s be clear, all compliance, checks etc are done by the countries’ own services) is beyond me. But it certainly isn’t something required by the Directive.

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2 Comments

  • Joe Litobarski
    November 13, 2009 at 9:04 am

    Hi, Antonia!

    A nice find! I think it’s this Directive here that you’re talking about.

    Very clearly:

    “2. This Directive shall not apply to:

    - establishments with fewer than 350 laying hens,”

    I might get in touch with defra myself…

    Reply
  • geoff
    November 14, 2009 at 9:21 pm

    Antonia,
    So on this occasion the EU isn’t guilty or at least very guilty. It’s our bureaucratic zealots overimposing the regulations “your” bureaucrats set.
    What if your bureaucrats hadn’t set any regulations? There’s a thought. What if the EU left us to manage our own affairs? Fat chance. How on earth did we manage our chicken related regulation until the EU came along to set us straight?
    “All compliance…is done by the countries’ own services” Thank God for that! The unspoken ending seems to be…”for now”.
    regards
    geoff

    Reply

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