Free range chickens could get a little less free

Glen Covey's darkened farmhouse keeps the blistering heat at bay while he sits at the kitchen table sipping a cold glass of water. It's a Wednesday afternoon, which means he has been cooped up in the abattoir butchering about 180 of his free-range chickens. He will butcher another batch the next day.

"Farming is a difficult way to make a living in the best of times," he says.

And right now, times could be better for him.

His wife, Kimberly Tilsley, has marked up a three-ring binder filled with pages of new rules that Glenryan Farms could have to follow to sell chickens next year.

The Chicken Farmers of Canada has rolled out a program to monitor free-range chicken farms across the country. The Nova Scotia arm of the chicken marketing board is in charge of making sure the 20 free-range chicken farmers in this province play by the new rules, which are being billed as bio-security measures to improve food safety.

But several Nova Scotia free-range chicken farmers are concerned the new program might be a covert way to put smaller, alternative producers out of business.

"I truly believe it's not about food safety — it's about profits," said Silvia Lange.

Ms. Lange and her husband run Lange's Rock Farm in Maplewood, Lunenburg County, and had raised free-range chickens until this year.

"Every time someone raises their own chickens, somebody else can't sell it," she said, referring to commercial farms. "Bio-security is not always what it seems. . . . It can be one of those things that gives consumers the idea that something has been done."

The general manager of the Nova Scotia chicken marketing board says the new rules are meant to protect the birds and consumers from disease, especially with the threat of avian influenza.