This nation’s poultry growers sure have pluck. And it doesn’t pay to run a-fowl of this group or get them squawking mad, as the Department of Homeland Security is finding out.
From the Associated Press:
Chicken farmers to protest DHS rules
Are chicken houses the next battleground in the war on terror?
Poultry growers are squawking mad over proposed regulations from the Department of Homeland Security that anybody with 7,500 pounds or more of propane gas register with the agency. The threshold is low enough that poultry farmers who use propane to heat chicken houses in the winter may be affected.
“It would affect almost all of us,” said Jenny Rhodes, who has 80,000 roasters in Centreville. She criticized the proposal to fill out “hellacious forms” and register farmers’ propane use.
“I could think of a lot easier, better targets” for terrorists than chicken farms, groused Richard Lobb, spokesman for the National Chicken Council, a Washington-based industry group. The U.S. Poultry & Egg Association, and the National Turkey Federation, have also joined a protest of the proposed regulations that name propane a “chemical of interest.” [full text]
To see the full list of proposed chemicals of interest, fly on over to this link.
Kmareka.com 
The old addage that the best government is government that governs the least would seem to have been lost forever. With close looks at chicken producers as targets of terrorists, new ground has been broken by bureaucrats who “only want to take care of us.” We should be grateful for this interest, even if it means higher food prices and more regulations for chicken growers. I suspect, the chicken producers will now have to file Chicken Security Plans (CSP) that show how they are protecting the perimeters of thier operation. I certainly think they will need to have security personnel on patrol, a federalized Chicken Security Service (CSS). I do suggest that this interest does not go far enough, however. Certainly the propane at the farms is an obvious target of terrorists, but the government has ignored a more important target at the chicken farms.
Bird droppings are very rich in nitrates. One can estimate the amazing tonnage of nitrate rich droppings produced by major chicken operations, certainly hundreds if not thousands of tons each year. Nitrates can be a prime component of explosives. I think it is imperative that the government also demand that the chicken growers provide security for the nitrate rich chicken droppings. Here too I think a specially trained force of chicken dropping guards, also federalize as the CDP (Chicken Dropping Patrol) be part of the security plan for chicken facilities. Only then can we be secure.