Meat-type chicken. A domesticated chicken grown for the primary purpose of producing meat, including but not limited to broilers, roasters, fryers, and cornish.

Meat-type chicken slaughter plant. A meat-type chicken slaughter plant that is federally inspected or under State inspection that the Food Safety Inspection Service has recognized as equivalent to federal inspection.

Shift. The working period of a group of employees who are on duty at the same time.

Spent fowl. Domesticated poultry that were in production of hatching eggs or commercial table eggs and have been removed from such production.

(a) Participating meat-type chicken slaughter plants shall comply with applicable general provisions of subpart A of this part and the special provisions of this subpart C.

(b) Meat-type chicken slaughter plants that slaughter fewer than 200,000 meat-type chickens in an operating week are exempt from the special provisions of this subpart C.

(c) If spent fowl are slaughtered at meat-type chicken slaughter plants that participate in the Plan, they may participate in the Plan through the provisions of this subpart C.

Participating meat-type chicken slaughter plants that have met the respective requirements specified in this section may be designated by the following terms and the corresponding designs illustrated in § 146.9 of this part:

(a) U.S. H5/H7 Avian Influenza Monitored. This program is intended to be the basis from which the meat-type chicken industry may conduct a program to monitor for the H5/H7 subtypes of avian influenza. It is intended to determine the presence of the H5/H7 subtypes of avian influenza in meat-type chickens through routine surveillance of each participating meat-type chicken slaughter plant. A meat-type chicken slaughter plant will qualify for this classification when the Official State Agency determines that it has met one of the following requirements:

(1) It is a meat-type chicken slaughter plant where a minimum of 11 birds per shift are tested negative for the H5/H7 subtypes of avian influenza, as provided in § 146.13(b), at slaughter; Provided, that with the approval of the Official State Agency, fewer than 11 birds per shift may be tested on any given shift if the total number of birds tested during the operating month is equivalent to testing 11 birds per shift; or

(2) It is a meat-type chicken slaughter plant which accepts only meat-type chickens from flocks where a minimum of 11 birds have been tested negative for antibodies to the H5/H7 subtypes of avian influenza, as provided in § 146.13(b), no more than 21 days prior to slaughter; or

(3) It is a meat-type chicken slaughter plant that has an ongoing active and diagnostic surveillance program for the H5/H7 subtypes of avian influenza in which the number of birds tested is equivalent to the number required in paragraph (a)(1) or (a)(2) and that is approved by the Official State Agency and the Service.

(b) [Reserved]