Below is something I wrote to Dayna Frazier concerning Marshall Farm's
recent "code violations"...she urged me to share them with the FML, so here
goes...
 
Commenting on the code violations alone: without seeing the exact violations
involved, it's a bit hard to comment, but I'll try<g>.  Given the bad
reputation and publicity surrounding some of the "puppy mills" lately, and
the fact that the USDA inspectors are some of the same folk that inspect the
mills, it wouldn't surprise me if some of the violations are of the "You're
gonna bust us for -=THAT=-!?" type.  In other words, out of however many
thousand cages, mebbe one or two were slightly tweaked in a non-obvious way?
 
All kinds of companies get code violations all the time.  Some are serious,
some are petty.  Inspectors can get ego trips too...or an inspector might
have a need to generate some "tickets" so they don't look too lax to their
boss...it's a lot like how traffic cops operate.
 
Mind you, I'm not saying for certain that this is what's going on with
Marshall Farms; I only urge people to take tales of "repeated code
violations" with a grain of salt.  If anyone has details that show the
violations to be more serious, I'd love to see them.  But where government
inspection of any type goes, the scenario I layed out above is more common.
[Posted in FML issue 1699]