I wonder why!

[Johnboy]

YOU CANNOT FEED CATERING WASTE TO FARMED ANIMALS.

It is illegal to feed catering waste to farmed animals. This was banned in the UK in2001 when it was concluded to be the likeliest source of the Foot and Mouth Disease epidemic. An EU ban was introduced in 2003.

Catering waste is defined as all waste food, whether raw or cooked, including
Used cooking oil (UCO), which arises in premises such as:

* Household kitchens
* Restaurants
* Fish and Chip/ Pizza/ Kebab
* Takeaway shops
* Canteens
* Cafes; or Vegetarian/kitchens/restaurants

It also includes other waste from other premises (food factories, distribution warehouses etc) that contains, or has been in contact with animal by-products
(such as raw eggs, meat fish products). ‘Farmed Animals’ includes any pet animals that belong to a species that are commonly farmed.
A copy of the DEFRA advertisement in the latest Smallholder Magazine.

As regards domestic Poultry I wonder why all of a sudden that DEFRA have decided to remind everybody of the law. Are they about to have a little purge do you think?
I think that to include vegetable matter from a household kitchen is almost impossible to detect and during my childhood the Chooks would have starved!!
There must be many ways around this law for vegetable matter and I wonder just how many people totally disregard it. I think it is again another law that gives the government blanket cover against the amateurs who do not put sufficient thought into their actions.
I am positive somebody is going to tell me that I have got it wrong again.
JB.

[alan refail]

Dear Johnboy

I may have disagreed with you some things - but on this I'm entirlely with you.
I have not seen the article you refer to yet, but (and perhaps I shouldn't say this, in case the DEFRA police are bugging my computer) I feed my poultry what is spare from the kitchen and is acceptable to them - they especially relish UCO (what a lovely abbreviation - never heard it before). Having said that, I would not bring in such things I didn't know the source of. That is apparently how the disastrous 2001 foot and mouth started.
Until I am told, officially, otherwise, my birds will enjoy their normal pellets and mixed corn, supplemented by bread, left over cooked vegetables, spare greens from the garden, skin of the boiled milk, spare raw pastry, baked potatoes, etc, etc, plus, of course they occasional scavenged frog or vole - and the UCO.
Come to think of it, even if told officially, they will carry on like this.

Gwell aderyn mewn llaw na dau mewn llwyn
Better a bird in the hand than two in the bush

[Chris]

Alan and JB

I agree entirely - my chickens are happy and OK with their pellets, corn and other bits (all from the garden and kitchen and nothing from eastern Europe or Holton). Look very healthy at the moment.

I'm just trying to work out what you have to do and how much you have to pay as a factory farmer to keep bird 'flu out of the news agenda. Must be quite a lot given the media obsession with this issue over the last 2 years.

I'm very positive that someone will also accuse me of being wrong - or at the very least of being very cynical.

[maree t]

hi, my chickens and pigs are fed all the scraps from our own kitchen which we are sure has not come into contact with meat. i have never fed them UCO as never thought of that. how do you feed this?
thanks maree

[tea-shot]

Just a thought - how do I stop my hens eating every worm, bug, flying insect, etc. if they aren't supposed to eat meat based products And can you only give them UCO if you haven't been frying bacon and sausages in it

[alan refail]

Maree
UCO - we throw our used (once only ) cooking oil onto the field, rather than down the drain, and the hens enjoy pecking the grass/ground where it has landed.

tea-shot
As you have noticed, hens eat what they like. And, as you imply, they are great meat-eaters when they can get it. Our UCO has usually fried fish or vegetables (i.e. chips). Anyone who doubts the selective intelligence of hens should try feeding them caterpillars, and watch the distaste on their faces. Mine will eat an entire cabbage and leave the caterpillars. But worms....that's a whole different can of.....

Alan

[Sue]

I think you are right Johnboy - stand by for more heavy handed legislation, which most people will ignore because it is stupid.

DEFRA should lay down the law about minimum standards of animal welfare, but let's face it - how many of us would subject our birds to the filth, overcrowding and obvious distress of a factory farm? Its no surprise that foot & mouth and bird flu have both surfaced in badly managed commercial operations. Those turkey sheds only get cleaned when the 'crop' matures and is cleared, so those birds stand in their own s**t for weeks, some die, others get injured and ill. Any wonder the place was alive with vermin

I think they should make Mr Mathews live in his own sheds for 12 weeks or so and see how he likes it - bet he wouldn't think it was boootiful

Sue

[Johnboy]

One of the reasons why I feel that this is legislation gone too far is this; as far as I am aware there is no law to prevent people from feeding their household waste to wild animals and birds within the confines of their own property and this means that you cannot feed something that is captive and therefore controllable but you are allowed to feed something that knows no boundaries.
This means that should something untoward be in your household waste then the wildlife are free to distribute it over the whole area.
I think DEFRA are being totally complacent and feel that by passing such a stupid unenforceable law that they are going to stop any outbreak of any of these diseases. The sad thing in all this is that although DEFRA have to ultimately administer the Law it is politicians who make that law. These laws are costly to produce and must be costing the tax payers of UK and the rest of Europe very dear.
The last Foot and Mouth outbreak was handled so badly I was glad to see the the outbreak of Avian Flu was handled very swiftly.
What amazes me is that the Media were absolutely praying that the outbreak was of the right strain and they could bring all their "Experts" out of the woodwork to tell us their usual load of crap.
I really see red when you get a reporter who wants to make you think he is so bloody knowledgeable when he in truth really hasn't a clue.
I am not on the side of factory farming and not particularly enamoured with Bernard Matthews but I feel that he will be made a scapegoat. There are so many laws that they must comply with, as all farmers, that it is almost impossible to be 100% legal all the time. I live 11/2 miles outside a conservation area and because I felled some trees that I had grown (Leylandii) I was threatened with court action not because they were worried about the trees but because it would destroy the area surrounding the conservation area which is not protected. The strange thing is that now the trees are gone the view is improved. You simply cannot win over petty officialdom. I had a load of manure delivered for my plot and the taxman called because I had not declared that I was holding livestock. It took two tours of my place before he would go away.
It is becoming more like a dictatorship from petty bureaucracy.
JB.

[alan refail]

Sue

You say DEFRA should lay down minimum standards for animal welfare. The problem is that the standards that do exist are lamentably low. But don't hold your breath for legislation on this. It's not in the government's interest.
The Roman Emperors maintained their power by "Bread and Circuses". Translate this into modern terms, and you have "Cheap Food and Super Casinos". Oh, and if you want to keep people's belief in you, have the occasional scare (foot & mouth, bird flu etc) or better still a war (on terrorism, Taliban, Iraq and wherever is next). History doesn't show us our mistakes, it just reminds us that we still keep making the same ones.

Alan