In the mid-1980s, Minnesota's Gold'n Plump Chickens gained national attention for television advertisements featuring combat-ready, helmeted birds driving tanks or parachuting from airplanes.

The humorous message was that they were protecting the Midwest from foul fowl out of the South.

Now a rule proposed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) suggests those courageous birds might need to reenlist, this time to combat terrorists.

DHS rules issued in April warned that any facility that stores significant amounts of chemicals would need to register with the government and do risk-assessment evaluations. That includes any business that possesses more than 7,500 pounds of propane.

That ruffled the feathers of the poultry industry, including about 1,000 Minnesota farms that need large amounts of propane to heat barns. They fear the burden of registration fees and complicated forms.

News that his farm might be a security risk surprised Kent Meschke, whose family has raised turkeys near Little Falls for 40 years.

"I really don't think anyone would want to blow up a turkey farm, unless they really like blowing things up," said Meschke. "I think the terrorists' priority is to hurt people, not turkeys."

Meschke's farm is 4 miles from Randall and 8 miles from Little Falls, the nearest town. Yet if the proposed rules stand, he'd have to figure out his latitude and longitude, and have to calculate "distance of concern" of potential fallout using a complex formula.

Current rules an 'early draft'

But Friday, the DHS tried to quiet the clatter in the hen house after the issue was reported in the Washington Post the weekend before.

"This is a molehill that grew into a mountain," said Bob Stephan, assistant secretary for infrastructure protection for the DHS.

Stephan said the document was merely an "early draft" of the rules, meant to solicit input from the chemical industry. Lobbyists for those industries may have created a stir to avoid more regulation, he said.

Poultry farms often heat their barns with propane, and since the gas weighs about four pounds per gallon, a farm with two 1,000-gallon tanks would need to comply under the existing plan.

Minnesota is the nation's largest turkey grower, and one of the larger producers of chickens, and most farms would fall under those proposed rules.

Farmers who use propane to dry grain could also be affected. And the National Propane Gas Association warns that a long list of other chemicals cited in the rules could affect other farms and small industries, many of whom are joining forces to challenge them.

The rules are contained in a 116-page document, and almost every poultry producer in Minnesota would have to fill out a 60-page form that the DHS estimates would take about 30 hours.

"There are a lot of questions that would make perfect sense to a facilities manager at Dow Chemical," said Richard Lobb, spokesman for the National Chicken Council. "But they'd have most farmers scratching their heads."

The DHS' Stephan doesn't dispute that. After discussing problems with various agriculture groups, he's sure adjustments will be made.