It seems no one is safe from the government, no matter what animals you have.

[Egapal]

It is a good argument for incorporating a business at any size for any breeding. All the government could (or anyone) is bankrupt the business and in this case that is a very very small amount of the total fine. The Moral of this is know all the laws that effect what you are doing and keep for personal finances and business finances completely separate (in this case the small •tiny• business would be bankrupt instantly). I feel very sorry for them but it seems they are in deep trouble with no way out.

Its kind of expensive to file for an llc. Cost me around $500 US dollars all said and done I believe. You are 100% correct though. At the end of the day its the protection you need should something like this happen. You can sue the company. Oh wait the company has 0$ in cash and next to 0$ in assets. Take it all if you want it so bad.

[spitzu]

Its kind of expensive to file for an llc. Cost me around $500 US dollars all said and done I believe. You are 100% correct though. At the end of the day its the protection you need should something like this happen. You can sue the company. Oh wait the company has 0$ in cash and next to 0$ in assets. Take it all if you want it so bad.

Depends on your state. It cost us next to nothing to file in Colorado.

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk

[Dragoon]

glad I'm Canadian

Sounds like I need to plan a move. This country has major issues and is headed down the toilet

[Dragoon]

Anyone know if this impacts gecko or snake breeding? all i see in mammal regs.

[Freakie_frog]

here's the bigger question.. With tens of thousands of men and women they can't find Osama Bin Ladan or Sadam Hoosain for years..but one family in MO sells a couple of rabbit's and they have no problem sending the right Department to the right house for the right thing and in one visit have them nailed..So the question is who was keeping track of their sales and turned them in?? That's the bigger question..

[sgath92]

here's the bigger question.. With tens of thousands of men and women they can't find Osama Bin Ladan or Sadam Hoosain for years..but one family in MO sells a couple of rabbit's and they have no problem sending the right Department to the right house for the right thing and in one visit have them nailed..So the question is who was keeping track of their sales and turned them in?? That's the bigger question..

The amusement park they sold rabbits [for exhibition purposes] to probably had the sale listed in their itemized tax filing.

[enchantress62]

I may be wrong but I didn't see any mention of an attempt to contact the USDA for their side of the story. Did anyone else think that was odd?

[sgath92]

I may be wrong but I didn't see any mention of an attempt to contact the USDA for their side of the story. Did anyone else think that was odd?

Considering the article was on Natural News, probably the most anti-fda/usda website on the internets, I wouldn't say it was odd. It was to be expected.

The fact is that they broke a federal law, and one that is easy to find out about using less than 3 minutes of google. All these websites on breeding rabbits mention this legal issue in their FAQ's because this issue comes up that often. If the USDA had been interviewed, they would have said this was a well known law that has been on the books for nearly fifty years now.

Personally, I don't think that somehow makes it fair for the feds to fine someone millions of dollars over a mistake involving less than 4600 in rabbits. Nor do I think it makes sense to care so much about the breeders of rabbits intended to public display [zoos, amusement parks, wholesale pet trade], yet not the breeders of rabbits intended for slaughter for meat or fur. We're not even talking about the people using these rabbits for crying out loud; just the people who are raising them. I am not saying ignorance of the law is an excuse, or that these people shouldn't have some kind of penalty for failing to go through the proper licensing. But I think even $10,000 in fines would have been absurd.

I am reminded of a story from NY where a family farm had decided to switch to a CAFO operation, due to the encouragement of the NY DEC who wanted all farms to switch to CAFOs in order to help cut down on non-point water pollution. In certain water sheds you could get all these state grants & loans to cover the costs to switching to CAFO. The catch was that, if you ran a CAFO you could not let any pollution make its way into the environment outside your facility. The whole point of the program was to keep things like livestock feces from running into rivers & lakes.

Well this family got in the program early on. In those days, a CAFO had a large uncovered tank outside which collected all the livestock waste products. Newer CAFOs don't work that way, and have a covered tank which then collects the methane the waste products produce and use that methane to fuel a generator. Anyhow, their uncovered tank burst after what was by all accounts an unprecedented natural disaster struck [a huge thunderstorm that raged for more than 24 hours and put so much water in their uncovered tank that it could not handle the load and collapsed]. This sent all this livestock waste downhill into a near by creek. The NY DEC fined them for every fish that died: because the family was unlucky enough to have built, with the NY tax payer's help, a facility that was not designed to handle what anyone would consider a freak occurrence. We're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars here. I heard this story originally from a person who was involved with the legislation behind this program, and this person talked about how the massive fine was somehow reasonable because the family involved was wealthy enough to have this huge windfarm operation that they just finished building. Seriously! So they want to encourage people to "do the right thing environmentally" by... fining someone when the design, which btw was given to them from the government, failed to handle what nature threw at it, and then decided that since they were investing in this green energy everyone says we need to invest in, they should be targeted for aggressive financial duress!?!? It's no wonder laws like the one in this story, which has literally been around for decades, is suddenly creating problems. It's not the "law" that's the problem: It's the people enforcing them.

[wolfy-hound]

If the law is so easy to find, why is it somehow excusable for them to not follow it? Everyone here usually agrees that if someone owns a exotic snake that is illegal in their area, it's THEIR responsibility to have checked their local laws, right? Just because it's 'natural' production or a 'family business', doesn't mean they're exempt from checking the laws before they go ahead and do whatever they want to.

Frankly, I find it ridiculous that they want to regulate pets but not food rabbits, since a sick rabbit sold as a pet is not likely to cause harm as a rabbit intended to be eaten. Unless the USDA facility processing the rabbits is inspected, but that doesn't cover the ones sold directly to consumers either.

So if I want to buy a dead rabbit, it's all fine... but buy a live rabbit for a pet and it has to be inspected.

And the fines enacted are ridiculous, but most of the time the "announced" fines are not what end up getting paid.

Of course, Natural News is not likely to post anything that might show a reasonable side, instead of ranting that everyone should be able to whatever they like without any inspection at all if you slap the "organic" or "natural" label on it. Yet, the first people to point and scream about any food issues? Yeah.

Myself, if I buy a dead rabbit to eat, or a dozen eggs, or a side of beef or a pet from a place that is NOT USDA inspected, I feel I'm taking my chances and I know it and I have no reason to squall if I get sick from eating it or handling it. Sure, I'll blame those I bought from, but not the government for not inspecting them, when I knew they weren't inspected. So instead of the government jumping on non-inspected producers.... let them produce and sell, and if the general public gets sick and sues them, then tough luck. If they produce good stuff and people like it, they keep buying it, and the producers pay more taxes on their higher income, all good.

The government gets involved in every aspect of everything because the American Public has insisted that's what they want. "That's not safe enough!" "What about the children!!??" has been squalled by the general public for years. Instead of not buying a unsafe toy, the public wanted the government to require inspection of all toys or the company can't sell them. Instead of choosing to buy raw milk or pasturized, it was "Children could get sick!!" Instead of taking responsibility for their own actions, the public wanted the government to require everyone to do things in the safest manner. And now that the government is meddling in everything, the public wants to cry 'No no! We don't want you to interfere with ME!'

Shrug. The generations of "no personal responsibility" are now reaping what they created.

"It's not my fault, I wasn't loved enough as a child!"
"It's not my fault, I can't spare time to read the warnings!"
"It's not my responsibilty to check the rules before I do this thing!"
"It's not my responsibilty to make life choices that aren't as fun or responsible!"

[kitedemon]

Very true! responsability is taken too lightly by most. Everybody makes mistakes and we have to be accountable for them. I do the best I can not to make mistakes and have put things in place to protect my family from any I may make.