THRIVING after the FALL

The Index · A subject

Hens and eggs

Hens, geese and ducks, the light they need, the laying year and the egg crock.

7 documents · 2 chapters · 5 dishes · 57 rows

In the chapters

Documents 7

On the Menu

Pickled eggs Chicken soup with dumplings Fresh egg pasta Roast chicken with herbs Duck with apples, Martinsgans

In the Workshop

The pig and hen breeds

Sources

  • Book Toldrá (ed.), Handbook of Fermented Meat and Poultry

All the sources

In the log 57

  • 34 confirmed
  • 13 amended
  • 4 partly confirmed
  • 6 unresolved
  • 12 marked for safety
  • W11 confirmed Safety Dressing a stone releases respirable quartz (silicosis): cut wet, outdoors, face covered; a cracked stone (dull ring) sheds grit; first flour after a dressing goes to …
  • G2 amended Safety Ascaris eggs >99 % dead after three to seven weeks at 55 °C; they survive chlorination and drying and are the indicator organism
  • O1 amended Safety Fox tapeworm: eggs on low leaves/berries, 190 days in soil, 10–15 yr latency, liver 98 %, ~41 cases 2022; washing and −20 °C useless; 70–80 °C ≥5 min kills; cook …
  • A1 amended Safety Zoonoses: Germany brucellosis-free 2000, bovine TB-free 1997, worthless without testing; Q fever in the Mark; Listeria from silage and soft cheese kills the unborn; …
  • A14 amended Safety Avian influenza housing orders (Stallpflicht) every autumn since 2016, virus enzootic in wild birds of the Mark; roof and wild-duck-free trough the defence; three hens …
  • A74 unresolved Safety Limewater: 1 kg slaked lime per 15 l boiled cooled hard water, lime into water; eggs under 24 to 36 h, unwashed, candled, points down, 5 to 8 cm cover, lard film, 8 to …
  • A76 amended Safety Salmonella killed at 70 °C held 2 min throughout; never wash an egg (cuticle); a warm egg into cold water draws contamination through the pores; onset 6 to 72 h; dirty, …
  • B18 amended Safety Hanging without a chiller: industry ≤7 °C core within 20–24 h; yard 0–4 °C 7–10 days, 10 °C 3 days, above 15 do not kill; flies stop below 10 °C, muslin door, halves not …
  • B19 unresolved Safety Lye and lime: wood-ash lye burns, eyes covered; 1 kg tallow ≈ 140 g NaOH or 200 g KOH; egg-float test (coin-width cap); slaked lime 1 kg/20 l burns eyes and skin, …
  • B22 amended Safety Burial of slaughter waste forbidden (TierNebG); knacker (Tierkörperbeseitigung) route; after the fall burn what the law says to burn, bury the rest deep away from the …
  • B7 confirmed Safety Hammer/Kopfschlag: universal Hausschlachter method until the 1930s bolt gun; forbidden by TierSchlV for animals over 5 kg (allowed for poultry, rabbits, small animals); …
  • D8 amended Safety Any herb picked low to the ground gets hot water for at least five minutes against the fox tapeworm; eggs survive freezing
  • I41 confirmed Charcoal walnut to small egg (25 to 50 mm); fines out; hardwood oak, beech, hornbeam, ash, hickory; birch, elm, maple good; pine and spruce poor; ring test like a cup
  • W16 confirmed Egg whites whisked in copper hold their foam better
  • W31 confirmed Biringuccio, De la Pirotechnia 1540: lute of lean clay, horse dung, egg white, hammer scale, linen strips and flour; rye flour and water as the modern lute
  • W45 confirmed Granite self-sharpens: quartz Mohs 7 cuts, feldspar 6 wears to expose it, biotite 2.5 to 3 pits and grips; Lausitz granodiorite at Demitz-Thumitz and Kamenz; Brandenburg …
  • G25 confirmed Manure analyses dry weight: poultry 3.03 % N, cattle FYM 0.5 %, sheep 3 %; poultry loses ammonia unless bulked with carbon and releases N in the first 30 days
  • G43 confirmed Heinz Ellenberg, Göttingen, indicator values 1974 (R 1 to 9 for reaction, N for nitrogen); sand acid indicators sheep's sorrel, corn spurrey, heather, silver grass …
  • A22 confirmed German (and Brandenburg) soils selenium-poor, feed supplementation supplies eggs and pork; phytate halves zinc absorption from whole-grain diets; inland goitre, iodised …
  • A23 confirmed 86 % of livestock feed human-inedible; ruminants 2.8 kg human-edible feed per kg meat and 0.6 kg human-edible protein returned per kg eaten; FCR live weight chicken …
  • A33 confirmed Family of four on sand: garden 1,000 m², rye 1,200 + seed, potatoes 150 + 550 for pig, lupin fifth of arable, orchard 0.25 ha, pasture 1.2, meadow 0.6, heifer 0.9, pig …
  • A43 confirmed Pig pasture 10–15 sows or 25–30 finishers/ha, move at 5–8 cm, rest 4–8 weeks; growers 5–15 % DM from sward; Ascaris eggs 5–10 years in soil
  • A44 confirmed Commercial layer ~300 eggs, culled in second year, male chicks killed at hatch; broiler slaughtered at ~6 weeks, cannot stand at ten
  • A45 partly confirmed Vorwerkhuhn: Oskar Vorwerk, Hamburg, 1900–1913, ~170 eggs; Sundheimer 1880s near Kehl from Brahma and Wyandotte; Ramelsloher (Lüneburg heath), Ostfriesische Möwe, …
  • A46 amended Bielefelder Kennhuhn: Gerd Roth, Bielefeld, 1970s, from barred Rocks, Welsummer, New Hampshire; 200–230 brown eggs; autosexing at hatch by down colour (cockerel pale …
  • A47 confirmed Library egg counts: Plymouth Rock 200–280, RIR 250–300, Orpington 180–200 (broody), Wyandotte 180–240, Sussex 240–260, Australorp 200–260, Bresse 250; one broody …
  • A48 partly confirmed Laying hen eats 110–130 g/day, 40–45 kg/yr, against 118's 200 kcal and 25 kg; a dozen hens on grain eat as much rye as five people; on gleaning 15–20 kg grain and ~150 …
  • A49 confirmed Layer ration 16–17 % CP and 3.5–4 % Ca; soft eggs and egg-eating from Ca shortage; own shells baked and crushed, snail shells
  • A50 confirmed Point of lay 20–26 weeks, a fifth less each year, autumn moult, 14 h light; cock per 10–12 hens; incubation 21 days at 37.5–37.8 °C, turned until day 18; broody takes …
  • A51 confirmed Hardware cloth ≤12 mm, never chicken wire, skirt 45–60 cm, roof net, 1 sq ft vent per bird, shut at dusk; fox, stone marten, raccoon (released Hesse 1934, in Brandenburg …
  • A56 confirmed Turn: Red List breeds with per-head subsidy; water buffalo on the Tegeler Fließ, Heck cattle at Hobrechtsfelde for the birds; hens legal in Berlin gardens, a hundred …
  • A58 confirmed Bench details: teat dip iodine or strong brine; cool milk below 10 °C within an hour; broody test on china eggs two nights, candling at 7 and 14 days, chick crumb or …
  • A60 confirmed Plantain and chicory roots reach nearly 2 m; milk on such a ley 12 to 19 µg iodine per 100 g, egg 23 to 43 µg (Norwegian and British figures, none from Brandenburg)
  • A75 confirmed Hen's light threshold 12 to 14 h (draft 1 had 14); moult 8 to 12 weeks, half rate after; pullets lay through first winter at 50 to 66 per cent; cohorts 7 pullets, 5 …
  • A77 confirmed Hen ration 80 g grain, 30 g pulse, 40 g roots, 25 ml whey, 8 g grit; c. 29 kg grain a bird a year, 438 kg for 15 birds, 0.18 to 0.22 ha of rye
  • A78 partly confirmed Tallow lamp 15 to 25 g fat per hour; 50 hens lit 4 h a night for 120 days burn 43 to 72 kg fat for 600 to 900 eggs (3 to 4 kg egg fat); fire risk in litter
  • A79 amended Breed dates: Bielefelder Gerd Roth 1970s, Sundheimer 1880s, Vorwerk 1900 to 1912, Reichshuhn after 1870 (chapter's 1907 for the standard also printed), Wyandotte 1890s; …
  • B48 confirmed Hen: shut without food overnight with water; carried by the legs head down; cone = bottomless bucket on the shed wall at chest height
  • B49 confirmed Hen scald: mature 54–58 °C 60–120 s, young 50–54 (56 gives 50–54 °C 120–210 s soft), >66 °C cooks breast skin; wing-feather pull test; large feathers against the grain, …
  • B50 confirmed Hen rest: rigor ~4 h, tender 12–24 h at 4 °C, hang overnight in the cold; old hen simmered 3 h; gizzard lining peeled; feathers to the pillow after a day in the sun; …
  • B53 confirmed The year: cow a village, 45 kg a house; pig a household; second spring pig harder to keep; 50 hens a year (old hens and cockerels of Ch 8), the only fresh meat …
  • B59 confirmed Hide salting: a third to half its weight in salt, fold flesh to flesh after 24 h, resalt, keeps months cold; soak 2 days; lime 1 kg slaked lime/20 l, stirred daily, 7–14 …
  • E58 amended Salt fish: lean species only, split, dry salt ¼–⅓ of weight 7–10 days cold, air-dried 2–3 weeks in cold dry months to > 50 % weight loss, keeps a year in a dry loft, …
  • S10 amended Egg floats at about 10 to 12 % brine; potato floats at 3 to 5 %
  • D34 unresolved Sand starves yeast of nitrogen; rotten-egg smell; skins left in as the remedy
  • D36 confirmed Nickel Jacob, furrier of Sprottau, 1568, first practical German bee book, workers raise a queen from an ordinary egg
  • D41 amended Mary the Jewess and the bain-marie; al-anbiq; al-Razi distilling before 900; Brunschwig, Liber de arte distillandi, Strasbourg 1500, lute of linen, salt water and egg …
  • T41 confirmed Egg test: fresh egg floats with a coin-sized patch = strong enough for soap; old egg floats in anything; feather dissolves in hot lye; for the wash the lye should be …
  • T42 confirmed Soft soap: 1 kg tallow to 200 g potash (Ch 9) or 3–4 l egg-floating lye; tallow at 40–45 °C, lye in a stream, stir to trace, self-heating, 2–3 h to translucent jelly; …
  • J11 confirmed 117's model: 1.0 ha arable in five 0.2 ha blocks (lupin, cabbage, carrots, potatoes, rye) + 0.5 ha clover grass; 3 goats, 12 hens, 2 pigs
  • J12 confirmed Sand yields: potatoes 20 t/ha, carrots 30, cabbage 30 (70 % edible), rye 30 dt/ha, lupin 20 dt/ha; block outputs 4,000 / 6,000 / 4,200 / 600 / 400 kg; milk 2,100 kg, …
  • J13 partly confirmed Buffers: 200 kg rye and 400 kg lupin to hens, 35 % drought/blight, 10 % seed/spoilage; net ≈ 5,440,000 kcal ≥ 4,000,000; "a subsistence model cannot rely on emergency …
  • J14 unresolved Kitchen arithmetic (own): 340 kg rye to the kitchen → ~280 kg flour at 80–85 % extraction → ~400 kg bread → a large loaf a day; 4,000 kg potatoes less 400 seed and 1,000 …
  • J15 confirmed Reconciliation: 1.5 ha of the household's own (goats, pig, hens) feeds four; a cow needs 2.7 ha of Luch that is the village's (Ch 8's 3.2 ha); plus 1.5 ha coppice (Ch 1) …
  • J19 unresolved Household year (own): field 1,500–2,000, kitchen ~1,100 (3 h/day), milking ~300 for three goats (twice daily over two lactations), wood 30–50, tools 156, pig 32, …
  • J29 confirmed 122 is an industrial model (1,000 covers, 2,000 l milk, 20 cows, 30 pigs, 200 hens); its farm figures cite "unknown_url"; no per-person or per-animal litres; roof yield …
  • J30 unresolved Animal water (own): cow in milk 60–100 l/day, more in July; goat 5–10; pig 8–15 by weight; laying hen ~0.3 l; house dairy wash 20–40 l/day; household with goats ~300 …