Slaughtering, Cutting and Processing of Poultry

The Poultry Products Inspection Act (PPIA) outlines the legal conditions under which amenable poultry must be slaughtered and processed. Amenable poultry species include chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese, guineas, ratites (ostrich, emu, and rhea), and squabs (pigeons up to one month old). At minimum, states must conform to these federal requirements. However, states can put in place regulations that are stricter than the PPIA. Amenable poultry that is slaughtered and processed under federal inspection can be marketed through all marketing channels and across state lines. The inspection must include both ante mortem and post mortem inspections of the birds. In contrast, there are few, if any, USDA inspected slaughter/processing poultry plants in New York that a farmer can take more traditional poultry (chickens, turkeys, etc.) to. This is because all of the USDA inspected poultry plants in New York are set up as packers processing only their own birds they raised or purchased for marketing under their own label to retail stores, restaurants, and wholesalers. They are not set up to process birds belonging to small local farmers who want to market their own birds themselves to household consumers, restaurants, retail stores, or wholesalers. Therefore, it is imperative that poultry farmers in New York be knowledgeable about the legal exemptions from federal inspection that poultry may be marketed under. Policy makers at the USDA FSIS have developed a helpful guidebook for determining when poultry slaughter or processing operations are exempt from the inspection requirements of the PPIA. This Guidebook is under revision and the FSIS hopes to have the revised version available in 2010. The old version is located here: http://www.fsis.usda.gov/OPPDE/rdad/FSISNotices/Poultry_Slaughter_ Exemption_0406.pdf The flow chart at the end of this chapter is taken from the USDA FSIS Guidebook and is an excellent tool for determining which exemption, if any, a poultry business falls under. Even when exempted from federal inspection, all poultry is legally required by the PPIA to 1) be healthy at the time of slaughter and 2) be slaughtered and processed under sound sanitary standards, practices, and procedures that produce poultry products that are sound, clean, and fit for human food (not adulterated).