Scraps and DEFRA's reply to me.

Sorry Mum   

Correct - as soon as the veg gets into your kitchen then it is out of bounds to your chickens.

The bit I don't understand about this is the council give us a green bin in which to put garden waste, cardboard and kitchen waste including cooked food.
So this could be left over food, a chicken carcass from a meal, I guess even uncooked chicken where we have say deboned a chicken.

This goes off to composting centre, then the bags of compost then appear back at our recycling centre for us to buy with no warnings on that it should not be put round freshly growing veg on the allotment. I'm always amazed!

The council's uses hot composting so the pathogenic bacteria don't survive - thus no need for warnings etc.

I would be more bothered about the bits of string and plastic and other rubbish that seem to appear in some bags of council compost.

Dear Ms Lyon,

Back yard hens and feed

Thank you for your email about feeding poultry food scraps.

The feeding to farmed animals (including backyard chickens) of catering waste, kitchen scraps, raw, partially cooked and cooked meat products is prohibited under EU animal by-products legislation, in order to control the potential introduction and spread of major exotic notifiable diseases. In the case of poultry, this includes Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI).

Kitchen scraps are every item of food that come from the kitchens of dwelling houses. This includes food originating from the kitchens of vegetarian homes which may still be of animal origin and could spread exotic diseases.

However, vegetable material originating outside the kitchen, which has not entered the kitchen, and which has not come into contact with material of animal origin in a dwelling house e,g vegetables grown in domestic gardens may be fed.

The reason for this strict approach is that vegetable material can easily get cross contaminated with material of animal origin in a kitchen environment and which can in turn present a disease risk if fed.

Full guidance is available from the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency (AHVLA) website at:
HYPERLINK: http://animalhealth.defra.gov.uk/managing-disease/animalbyproducts/collection-feeding-abp/Ban-on-feeding-of-kitchen-scraps-to-pet-poultry-and-other-pet-farmed-animals.asp



Yours sincerely,




Tiyi Morris
Defra - Customer Contact Unit

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra)

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So this means that all countries in the EU are prohibited from feeding any food scraps that have come from your kitchen. There are no if's or buts or what ifs - it is illegal.
If you grow your own veg then so long as it doesn't enter into your house you can feed your chickens the fresh veg.

So that's all that needs to be said really.

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