[silver]

Hello all!

I am looking to expanding my very very small flock (16) to 100 in the coming months and further so to the point of 400 chickens  (I am breeding, hatching, etc etc)

Either way long story short, I want to sell my eggs, at 50 birds I will need to register and at 350 I will need send samples for testing.

I was wondering if anyone could aid me in providing information? I am mainly struggling with understanding how to maintain a flock in regards to salmonella, I see people vaccinate chicks at a young age but the information I am missing is

What brand? where from? at what flock size is vaccinating viable?

furthermore I want to register as an egg packing facility too, is there a list of standards said packing facility should have?

Any information someone could give me would be great.

[Perris]

You need to work your way through this
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/egg-packing-centre-registration

read the guidance carefully (the link to it is down the page), think through your hazard control, register with your local authority as a food producer, and when you've completed all the preliminaries, then you can apply to be an egg packing centre. It is not as onerous as it seems at first, and you should be able to achieve it without getting a qualification in health and safety first. Just bite the bullet and get your head down to work through the paperwork. You will learn useful health and safety lessons during the process. And you will know exactly what you do and don't need to do to sell eggs at scale to the public. The egg marketing inspector might also help you with sourcing the vaccine, and e.g. cartons, labels.

[silver]

Thank you! I have been looking into this, I must have missed the specifications, I was trying to mainly find out about the vaccine (perhaps as you say the inspeggtor.......*cough*.... will help)

as well as the guidelines for the egg packing seeing as its environmental health and stuff I guess it was to be a clean sterile environment of some sort?

ANYWAY I will dig deeper and power through, have you do this yourself?

[Perris]

inspeggtor - very good 

yes I have. It's not as difficult as it seems at first sight. At least for small scale (backyard) production of the sort I practice. So e.g. you don't need a sterile environment but you do need to stay out of the kitchen. Can't say I took too much notice of large scale requirements - you may find it easier/cost effective to stay below the threshold where regs change. If you research smart by looking at that boundary first, you could save yourself a lot of time.

[silver]

Thank you, this is REALLY reassuring, trying to get all the regs for profiting off a smallholding seems rather daunting.

Do you vaccinate your chickens against salmonella? or rely on best practicies regarding hygiene? how many birds do you have?

I hatch my own  so looking for a cost effective way, or is it not worth it in your opinion?

[Perris]

no I don't vaccinate, and am pleased to say I got a 5* hygiene rating from the local authority (you have to be assessed as a food producer as part of the reg process). I am also very careful with biosecurity - it is a lot easier to prevent disease than it is to try to clear it up after contamination.  But I also choose breeds that have reputations as having good resistance to disease, rather than breeds that have reputations as best layers or growers; you really need to tailor your choices to the sort of environment you are going to keep them in. E.g. some breeds thrive in true free-range (i.e. foraging for a lot of their own food) and some just sit waiting to be fed, the former will not do well in confinement and the latter will not do well left to their own devices.
I hatch my own too, but have never done the calculations to see if I do it in a cost-effective way. I do it because it's the least risky way of getting new birds. Whatever else you do, do NOT ignore quarantine of any new birds you bring into your flock.