Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Poultry and Pets => The Hen House => Topic started by: tyrone on September 24, 2008, 23:34
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Not a pleasant one but does anyone know of any regs reguarding the disposal of dead poultry. I am looking into all aspects of keeping hens and have covered most things but a little unsure on this one. Cheers :(
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Hi tyrone and welcome. :)
I think it probably depends on quantities and your setup.
If it's the odd hen that's died, you could prob pop it in your wheelie bin (if you have one) as you might a carcass from the shop.
If the cat catches a mouse, I just drop it in a plastic bag and pop it in the bin. Can't see a huge difference.
If you're culling several at once, you may need to investigate a more commercial method of disposal.
Rob 8)
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If you adhere strictly to the law, which we must all do of course, then all caracases must be disposed of in an appropriate manner. In the case of chickens, arrangements must be made for them to be disposed of at an accredited centre. Popping them into a wheeley bin is not acceptable. Its also asking for trouble from the authorities. If we are going to play at farming, then we must abide by the regulations. To do so, can be quite expensive of course.
In reality, I never have any chickens that die. :thumright: We do however have some very very hot garden fires from time to time and we do lose one or two to the fox as well.
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We do however have some very very hot garden fires from time to time
Funnily enough my father-in-law, who was a farmer, used to have some very very hot fires too!
I wish someone would have told my local pig farmer that the way to correctly dispose of dead piglets was not to let his dog bury them in the corner of my horse's stable. :shock:
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Nuff said :wink:
And if you eat your hens, then presumably they come under food waste ?
Rob 8)
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You get the idea Rob :roll: I also kill any chickens just before they die and feed them to my pack of five dogs. :thumright:
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Not that any of our hens will die. They'll slowly dissolve into the ground and become flowers :roll: ....or something. :)
Rob 8)
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I suppose your all dead right in your own ways.
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Thankyou for your kind welcome and info
Cheers Tyrone
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You are permitted to dispose of a dead pet chicken in the public house refuse collection (which I don't do).
You are not permitted to bury them in your garden (which I do do).
:lol:
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You can put dead chickens in your pubs bins well I never knew that one! :wink:
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You are permitted to dispose of a dead pet chicken in the public house refuse collection (which I don't do).
You are not permitted to bury them in your garden (which I do do).
:lol:
I'm afraid that this bit of information is incorrect.
You are not permitted to put dead chickens in bins. I've spoken to the veterinary department at Defra about this and it is a breach of 'Animal Bye Product Regulations.
Dead carcasses of poultry should go to the same designated incinerator sites as sheep and cattle. As I said earlier,its a costly exercise.
I've also spoken to our council and they also say that it is illegal to put dead chickens into your bins. They class it as a bio hazard due in the main to risk posed by Avian Flu.
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Well I'll have to check on the source I got that information from Bodger. If my information is wrong I'll have to put them straight too :shock:
I'll post again whichever is the case :D
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i know your not permitted to bury horses on your farm anymore, i have one very old pony whom i neglected to obtain a passport for, without said passport she doesn't exist, if she doesn't exist then i can't bury her when she dies, can i?
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What if a wild animal (diseased or otherwise) dies on your land ?
Are you obliged to have removed and disposed of, or can it rot where it lays and infect watercourses, etc. ??
Serious question.
Rob 8)
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your meant to inform DEFRA, then they charge you for taking it away.
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Glad I don't have land :roll:
Lots more bonfires then. :)
Rob 8)
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there's different rules for pets, if we have a pet sheep and it dies then we can bury it, if it's not a pet we have to inform DEFRA and they charge for removal, we have 34 pet sheep at the moment, gone are the days of ringing the local kennels and your fallen livestock feeding the hounds for a week.
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This is information is from an article by Sue Hammon of the Wernlas Collection published in August 2003. She writes a chicken keeping column in Kitchen Garden magazine.
"DEFRA has announced new regulations for the disposal of "fallen" stock as from May 1 2003. In agricultural terms, fallen stock means animals or poultry which either die naturally or are culled and have to be disposed of.
From that day onwards, the only legal method of disposal of a "body" is incineration or rendering. (a garden incinerator is not sufficient as the temperature has to reach 850C in two seconds! Local vets will send them for cremation for approx £10). The only areas exempt from this are the remote areas of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland.
I spoke to DEFRA about this and they were quite adamant that the rules apply equally to "pet chicken" keepers as to the large poultry empires".
So Bodger is correct, a lot of us are law breakers :oops:
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not me, i haven't got any horses, sheep, chickens, ducks, goats, cats or dogs.
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not me, i haven't got any horses, sheep, chickens, ducks, goats, cats or dogs.
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: Yeh right :lol: :wink:
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Well Im sorry but as I live in the middle of the countryside, its a case of what the eye doesn't see.........
Mine get a cremation and a little prayer, and thats an end to it!!!!!
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burried in the out of bounds flower bed is my chooks idea of heaven :wink:
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Interesting questions & answers on DEFRA's site,
Q&A Link here (http://www.defra.gov.uk/animalh/by-prods/fallen/disposalqa.htm)
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Thanks for that Doorman
I'll quote it here so we don't lose it in the future.
Q3. Can the burial of pet animals continue?
A. Yes. The EU Animal By-Products Regulation (ABPR) allows Member States to apply various derogations regarding the disposal of animal by-products (ABPs) and, amongst others, the Government has applied the derogation to permit the burial of dead pet animals.
The definition of a pet animal given within the EU ABPR is 'any animal belonging to species normally nourished and kept, but not consumed, by humans for purposes other than farming'. Therefore the normal farm species such as sheep, cattle, pigs, goats and poultry etc. would fall out with this definition and would require disposal by an approved route other than burial.
NB: Under a strict interpretation of the Regulation there is a case for arguing that no horse should be considered a pet. This is because in the EU as a whole the horse has a rather different status than it enjoys in the UK, i.e. it may be kept for human consumption. The same is not true for cattle, sheep and pigs which throughout the EU may on occasion nominally be kept as pets but do not belong to 'a species normally nourished and kept but not consumed by humans…'.
However, the different status of the horse in the UK provides us with an opportunity to take a more flexible approach to interpreting the regulations where horses are kept as pets, and we have asked enforcement authorities (local authorities) to do this where possible.
Where local authorities decide to advise horse owners that a particular animal may be considered a pet and buried then they will want to give appropriate guidance. Location of the burial site, possibility of livestock access and potential for leaching into watercourses should be taken into account. Useful advice (110 KB) which was provided under the previous Animal By-Products Order 1999 when burial was permitted under defined circumstances remains on the Defra website.
Please note this applies only to England - If you live in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland please contact your respective national agricultural departments for advice.
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It is interesting. I think there has been a debate on here about whether a lot of chickens, ducks, etc should be re-considered as pets. If a horse can be, then why not any animal that is kept as a companion rather than purely for production ?
If they were all livestock, they'd be culled after 2 years, or before. Any non-productive hen must, by definition, be a pet.
Wouldn't get you anywhere with defra obviously, but could be argued as a legal point.
Rob 8)
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It's all to do with transmission of diseases like BSE Rob.
We eat chickens and ducks in this country but not horses. So Chickens and ducks are farm species and horses are not.
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I realise the disease implications but surely a few backyard hens pose no greater risk than wild birds or other species ??
Or would that not make any difference ??
Rob
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I realise the disease implications but surely a few backyard hens pose no greater risk than wild birds or other species ??
I'm sure your right Rob.
But rules is rules and to try to say yes to some, no to others, maybe here, not there. It would be a nighmare for "the authorities".
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My sentimentality tends to kick in with this sort of thing. :D
How dare they call ours chickens "livestock", etc :roll:
I know why they're saying it because so many of us on here tread a fine line between pets and small-scale farming. I know farmers have favourite sheep ( :shock: ) and cows so just because we treat out chooks like feathered people doesn't make them or us special.
BUT I doubt many will be ringing DEFRA when their Delilah falls off the perch, aged 8. And i doubt DEFRA would want them to either. :)
Rob 8)
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Henny Penny is currently in a 2' deep hole in a quiet part of my allotment where no crops would ever be grown. I thought I was doing the right thing :roll:
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I've buried plenty of pets over the years in our back garden (different one).
Don't see a problem unless she had a transmittable disease.
Rob 8)
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Our council refuse department answered the question of the disposal of dead wild animals and they said that they were happy to accept such offerings in their bins. It seems to me that they might draw a line if it came to a full sized stag of course. :D
Wild animals, for obvious reasons don't come under the Animal By Product Regulations.
Don't forget the trouble that Fred West and his Mrs got themselves into. :shock: :shock: :shock:
Seriously though, small scale poultry keepers like ourselves are probably being perfectly sensible in our approach to the disposal of dead poultry, but as we all know, common sense, doesn't wash when it comes to dealing with officialdom. Consequently, we must all have the correct answers at the ready, should we ever be called upon to give them.
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A little off topic but just an interesting theoretical thought.
I buy a chicken from tesco or the local free range farm and put it in my fridge. Now for many reasons said dead chicken does not get cooked and a week or so later I chuck it in the bin. How is this different to putting a dead pet hen in the bin :?:
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I checked this as well, and its food, so you are OK.
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I checked this as well, and its food, so you are OK.
:? But my dead hen could be food. I just choose not to eat it :wink:
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I'm not defending the law, I'm simply trying to point out what it is.
These laws are designed in the main, to apply to farmers who may have large numbers of dead bodies to dispose of but they are still applicable to poultry keepers.
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Yes, I understand that Bodger. Crazy old world eh :!:
No one can be trusted us use any common sense nowadays :wink:
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Fortunately, they must be kept quite busy and would have to be VERY bored to bother with the likes of us. :)
Unless they suspected 'fowl' play of course :lol:
:oops: sorry
Rob 8)
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What gets me is, we have all these rules and regs going on. then these TV programmes encourage to keep chickens so we can eat lovely fresh eggs, but no one comes along and says well, now you've got your hens, did you know that when it dies, you can't bury it as it isn't strictly a pet, and you can't put it in the bin as it could carry an awful diease and infect our lovely clean land fill site, but you can pay a man lots of money to come and take it away for you!!!!! :x :x
Also, when we clean out the chook sheds, most of the manure goes onto the compost heaps, but the other week, there was a lot of straw and shavings that was still very dry, so we decided to take it to landfill. We wanted to put it in the green bins, as it would help their compst a lot and the council composting is very hot and will turn it into manure very quickly.
What have you got in those bags said the man at the gate. straw and shavings from our chickens Brian said, can't go in the green waste, we aren't allowed animal by-products. So we took it round to landfill. What have you got in there?? another man said. Brian told him the same thing. Can't go in landfill, we are not licensed for animal by-products.
Brian said what do I do with it then? Our compost bins are full. Oh you can bring in a carrier bag full a week, and you can't put it in your own rubbish bin as they are not allowed to take it either. You have to make your own arrangements to dispose of it!!!
So we do, we have a lovely big fire each week, which with the shavings takes nearly a week to smoulder through, lovely and hot and whoops I dropped that dead chicken on the fire by mistake!!!!
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So we do, we have a lovely big fire each week, which with the shavings takes nearly a week to smoulder through, lovely and hot and whoops I dropped that dead chicken on the fire by mistake!!!!
If they ask, tell them it's a Bar-b-que !! :D
Rob 8)
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I've put raw bones from supermarket chickens in my bokashi bin and they've disapeared quite nicely.
I was planning on doing the same with the guts and feathers as well from my own birds, when the time comes.
Hopefully I won't get too many birds up and die without my realising they are ailing, If I miss the odd one, I'd want to give it a pm, so it would end up being dismembered as well anyway so I figure it could go in the Bokashi bin too.
I hadn't thought much about what to do with the carcasses if a fox gox gets in, but having read this thread I think I'd have a nice hot bonfire; I wouldn't want to risk the fox digging up the bodies.
The only circumstance I can think of that I would call DEFRA is if a lot of birds die in one day or in quick succession hours after showing symptoms. i.e. in case it might be bird flu, so need a professional post mortem.
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whats a bokashi bin??????
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Double bag and bin. Bury them and mr fox will come sniffing. Or give to very hungry ferrets.