British people have been ordered to register their chickens with the federal government or else they’ll face stiff monetary fines and possible jail time. Anyone caught aiding and abetting an unlicensed chicken after October 1st will be considered a criminal and treated as such. It’s just the latest example of totalitarianism spreading among Western governments as they seek to emulate the former Soviet Union.
A federal chicken registry?
Indeed. Harboring an unregistered chicken in the UK, Wales, and Scotland will now net you a £2,500 fine if they catch you and possibly even a jail sentence. (The rule goes into effect in Scotland on December 1st, so they have a little bit of a reprieve.) This is supposedly being done to protect people from avian flu, but most people recognize it as simply more nanny-state bullying of the little people.
The government claims that this will allow them to provide “more effective surveillance” to protect everyone. Under the old rules, anyone with fewer than 50 chickens or ducks in their backyard or garden was allowed to go about the business of growing their own food unmolested by the government.
Now if you have just one lonely pet chicken that you keep in your backyard, you have to register it with the government. This is despite the fact that the BBC recently reported there have been zero registered cases of avian flu among “captive birds” anywhere in the UK.
Chicken owners need to register their contact information with the government, where the birds are kept, their species, and the number of birds. They’ll also have to provide the government with a reason why they have chickens. Parrots are exempt from the new draconian rules so long as they are never allowed outdoors.
