Wow - that's crazy - but I am not surprised and have been expecting this kind of thing to be coming.
We have egg and meat chickens also. We take great care of them, but that doesn't matter to the government.
The government wants to know who has chickens, which is why all the feed sellers must take your name and phone number when you buy feed so they can turn the info in to the government.
The "official" reason they give for taking this info is the laughable reason of in case there is a recall on the feed they want to be able to get a hold of whomever purchased the feed.

Ya, OK.

FYI - there is a new avian bird flu just released - I mean discovered - in Asia. Read an article on it a few days ago.

Here near where I live, there was a chicken farmer a couple years ago - small to middle range size farm with 30 to 50,000 chickens. The government inspector told the farmer that they found bird flu on his farm and he had to destroy all his chickens and if he didn't do it himself, they would come and do it and bill him.
He had to slaughter and bury all his chickens based on some dipshit government worker and his word. No opportunity for a second opinion.
I think some big chicken farmer company made a complaint on him for cutting into his business.

With the new flu coming, they will go around and do this to everyone who has backyard chickens.
Food shortage must be equal for everyone.
Good luck there OP. Glad the owner told the asshat to bugger off.