Old Sussex girls are great

All those enjoying their "free range" breakfast egg must be applauded for paying the extra penny/cent or two. However the bad news is that you are still supporting a very industrialised, commercial business where the animal welfare is far from being near the top of the list of priorities. I am ignoring fro the moment all the eggs we eat that are in finished products where the chances are very high the eggs are from some kind of cage "husbandry" - not a word one can use much nowadays.

Almost all commercial chickens worldwide today are reared by a handful of companies who hold the rights to produce two types of chicken - meat or egg. These so called Hybrid chickens are available in different colours but are basically the same. Turbo chickens - all male chicks on the egg laying production line are killed at birth - they have been bred so as to be able to be "sexed-sorted" on day 1, a farmyard chicken will usually only be identifiable at several months. I think in Germany alone around 50 million day old chicks are shredded/gassed each year but at last the government is stepping in to ban this. Almost all of these chicks have their beaks clipped at birth, painful but said to avoid later damage from being picked. A meat chicken is slaughtered at 4 to 6 weeks, an organic version at least takes 4 months. The egg layers are designed to lay 320 eggs a year (an egg shell needs 20 hours to develop) a farmyard bird may lay 150-220 a year. The chickens need very high protein food, mainly soya, to be able to do this and have no commercial use after 2 years, the egg laying rate drops right off. A farmyard chicken will lay fairly constantly for 6+ years.

And the best bit for the multinationals hatching the chickens from their "patented" parent stock, hybrid chickens eggs can't be hatched to produce further chickens with the needed characteristics - you always need to buy original stock!

We want to increase our egg output - not for us but because so many friends, relations and especially Angie's work colleagues in Munich would like to have more. It's never going to be a money earner as most are given away anyway but at most we ask 25 cents/egg.

Today Angie drove about 40km to a hobby chicken breeder to buy 10 hens but breed chickens and not hybrids. They cost twice as much but we are convinced we must make this perhaps pointless "statement". I am not that naive to claim all chickens should be that way overnight - we would probably have to quadruple or more,  the number of animals kept.

So we now have 3 Sussex girls, a breed as old as Julius C when he Veni, Vedi, Vici'd the southern England shores - a breed noted for both it's meat and egg laying. Available in all colours and sizes, we have so called "Lights", white with a touch of black. Then 2 black Marans, a French breed laying dark brown/chocolate coloured eggs, and 5 "game" type coloured, so called Green Layers/Easter Eggers which lay the green/blue eggs some claim to be good for lower cholesterol levels - However only if you eat 100 eggs a day are you likely to see some benefit.

Back home the Sussex girls were the only ones to take the opportunity to get outside and enjoy our first 20°C+ day. The rest stayed in the "Winter Garden" all day. Sussex girls are apparently noted for being outgoing, friendly, trusting, relaxed, robust, adventurous .... just ask my daughter Kate, born in Chichester, West Sussex - NO, she did NOT start the recent storm. Within a few hours one had even laid an egg. Most of the new arrivals are not yet quite old enough to lay - at a local, huge,  once a year traditional "Easter Sunday Small Animal Market" (no cats/dogs) the breeder had sold almost his entire stock. We couldn't go due to invite for lunch.

While Angie busy getting the chickens, I walked the dogs in Ottobeuren and for the second time this week ended up chatting for ages with "stranger" women, the dogs of course being the reason. The first on Tuesday, Michaella, a young policewoman (married to a policeman and with 2 daughters) who lives in a nearby village, has horses and is wrestling with wanting to have a dog again after losing her 14 year old Lab a year ago. Today a lady, Susanna, about 4 years my junior, with her little 10 year old Yorkie with a heart defect who Luna loved. From northern Germany/Berlin originally, a keen, semi professional photographer and children book author and heavily in to nature, natural healing, jazz festival organisation and loads of other interesting things.

I am slowly picking up but may just go to GP tomorrow to have a round of iron and VitB 6+12 jabs. It's been over 3 months and I really ought to go monthly. Hope I can find where I stored the vials.

For the record, food rationing in Germany ended today in 1950, putting 40,000 on the dole - those who had administered the coupons. In the UK final rationing ended on 4th July 1954. Interesting to note Wikis comment that the opposition Conservative Party "exploited and incited growing public anger at rationing, scarcity, controls, austerity and government bureaucracy" in the late 40' so as to win the 1951 election.

And very finally just heard that today it's a very final "Good Night from me and Good Night from him" - He and his mate gave me many laughs in years gone by - RIP Ronnie.