Undercover vets

In order to find information specific to poultry under the NAIS you must
download the PDFs from the USDA website. Go to
on the upper right hand side of the page click on the links for Draft
Strategic Plan and then Draft Program Standards. Print them out and read
them, they're long, but it's worth it.

Poultry are specifically mentioned in the Draft Program Standards, on
page 15. One of the real problems, in my opinion, is that the Drafts
*don't* get specific enough, and at present all of the program demands
are set up to apply across the board to all specie covered by the plan
(which include: horses, beef or dairy cows, meat or dairy goats, meat or
fiber sheep, swine, elk, bison, ratites (ostrich and emus), and poultry
(including chickens, ducks, geese, guineas, turkeys, quail, and pigeons,
although they seem to have forgotten peafowl.)

Obviously, a tag that will work on a larger animal won't work for
poultry. And the requirements that each tag be 15 characters (see Draft
Program Standards page 12) is ridiculous when applied to poultry. As
well, the requirements for Animal Event Codes (which must be reported
within 24 hours, *down to the minute*) are also ridiculous, and include
provisions such as "Sighting - Animal has a confirmed sighting at a
location, no movement has occurred. (Ex: veterinarian sighting)" (page
13.) So as it reads now, every time the vet comes to your farm, every
single animal with an AIN (Animal Identification Number) that the vet
sees must be reported, again, down to the minute. As well, as the
requirement stands now, we will be required to report each animal
covered under an AIN *by gender.* How on earth do we do that with
day-old chicks?!