One day the Government will tax us on the air we breath, oh wait they already do, It is in the form of vehicle emissions.
The Mini Farm is a very small entity to never get as big as to compete with any of the big competitors or never as big as to corner any type of market of any kind, but the Government still sees it as a agricultural business and makes us pay all the fees as if we are one of those big corporations. Now the fees may be a little less but we still have to jump through the same hoops.
The rules say you have to have a license to sell this type of bird and another license to raise another type. Then you have to buy another license if you want to take them somewhere to sell other than your land. That one license alone is $500.
Then you have to have to have all these test done to make sure you are selling healthy birds and if they find one bird that is sick, they will destroy everything and ban you from raising anymore. Then if you decided to sell some fryers already processed, that is more licenses and now we brought the health department into the equation.
The bigger you get, the more the fees are. So it is like you are being penalized for success.
Now we are bringing Quail on the Mini Farm and being that they are a "Game Bird" the Texas Fish and Game are involved. We have to get another license just to have them on the place and send in reports for every egg and bird we have on hand or sold. If they randomly inspect us and find something different then it is a $500.00 fine.
Did you know that in Texas you have to have a Game Bird license to raise and sell any type of geese? I didn't until yesterday.
We already have our food handlers license so we can sell our home made pickled goods and sauces but now we learned we can only sell them in the county the license was issued in. Any other county we sell in we have to get the same license for that county or we get fined.
What it all boils down to is that these people that make these rules really do not care about me, you, the consumer or the animals. They care about justifying their jobs and sticking it to the man.
Just a note, when I sat down here tonight I had no intention of writing anything about all this. I was going to talk about what happen today and what the plans were for tomorrow. I have a really neat little build I am doing and was looking forward in sharing it with you all. But it is late and I guess when I do not get enough sleep I tend to ramble on and there is not anything better to get your blood pumping than the government sticking it to ya.
Good post with pics tomorrow, promise.
It's just ridiculous. There was a family around here that literally got "stung" for selling raw milk. They didn't advertise, they just had a set place where the consumers would pick up. They dairy board set up their 2 teenage daughters and are really taking them to the cleaners. Make you scared to move, let alone sell people quality animals and food.
ReplyDeleteDon't even get me started.
ReplyDeleteThank yall for the comments.
ReplyDeleteHere you can sell raw milk but you have to have the signs saying it is not for human consumption. What the buyer does with it after they buy it is not on you, yet.