[Chookster]

I'm particularly interested in the advice given to chicken keepers and would dearly like to get hold of a copy of the leaflets I believe the government issued about chicken keeping as I'd like to see if there are practises that have survived through to today.
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Hi HF - contact the Imperial War Museum (Lambeth location) and get in touch with their archive department.  See what you can get from them - they keep copies on wartime leaflets

www.collections.iwm.org.uk

Let me know how you get on  I really need to get a few bits from them myself!!

[Chookster]

here's a good pic from the internet of an egg pail similar to those used in the war (ours is stoneware I think with a metal and wicker covered handle)...

[Chookster]

I use isinglass for clearing my wine, but only when it is difficult to clear------Fred

I thought it was waterglass that was used for preserving eggs and the isinglass is something entirely different

It is the same thing    During the war it could be bought as a viscous, clear liquid which you added water to, usually cold water but there is talk of boiling the water first.

To answer some other queries that came up...

Ration cards were given regarding chickens.  I have a good few friends who grew up during the second war and one of them remembers going down to "Honours", an agricultural merchants where they would buy "Brand" in paper sacks with coupons issued to them specially. 

Apparently it looked a bit like demerara sugar but dry - they would make it into a paste and then add boiled scraps to it.  This was called "chicken meal".

The display I have produced at the museum is a Dig for Victory garden which shows how people literally dug up their gardens (and local parks!).  A few chickens are kept in the garden too and their "surplus free range eggs" (as we know they must be labelled properly within the guidelines of today!!)  sold in the shop.

You can see a picture of my wartime garden and chickens on www.knobblyveg.co.uk or www.kbobm.org.uk   

Interestingly, by the end of World War II, approximately eleven and a half MILLION hens were being kept by "Backyarders" (people who kept chickens in their backyard/garden/balcony).  Just before the war and at the beginning of the war this number was nearer 5 million.  It is said that if BEER had been rationed it was stated by Lord Arnold of the House of Lords at the time that there would be enough barley available to feed nearer 18 million hens which would provide the equivalent to around 4 eggs per family a week and there wouldn't therefore have been an egg shortage - or the necessity for dried eggs come to that!! Didn't dried eggs make a comeback into supermarkets this year by the way??? Or was that something else on the milk shelf?

History lesson endeth herewith! sorry 

[Paul Plots]

Chookster, are you sure it was called "brand" and not "bran"?

We used bran to add to boiled & mashed potato peelings which, when cooled, the chooks loved. Occasionally minced fish-heads were also added (with the bran mix). It was a wonderful job () turning the mincer handle and finding several fish eyes still looking up at you once the rest had been minced and dropped through to the bowl below.

The joys of childhood!!    I think I can still recall the smell of steaming potato peelings  :blink:

[Chookster]

Chookster, are you sure it was called "brand" and not "bran"?

oh my goodness - yes, that's what you get when you sit for hours reading through market research to do with farmers markets and supermarkets LOL!!   thanx L 

[8doubles]

Interesting stuff, i like to learn how things were done in the past. I`d heard of keeping the eggs in a bucket of isinglass but not about the dipping and drying method.

Keep going with the fascinating facts from the old days .

[hillfooter]

I'm particularly interested in the advice given to chicken keepers and would dearly like to get hold of a copy of the leaflets I believe the government issued about chicken keeping as I'd like to see if there are practises that have survived through to today.


Hi HF - contact the Imperial War Museum (Lambeth location) and get in touch with their archive department.  See what you can get from them - they keep copies on wartime leaflets

www.collections.iwm.org.uk

Let me know how you get on   I really need to get a few bits from them myself!!

Thanks chookster I'll let you know how I get on.  I'll enquire in the New Year.

HF

[Paul Plots]

Interesting stuff, i like to learn how things were done in the past. I`d heard of keeping the eggs in a bucket of isinglass but not about the dipping and drying method.

Keep going with the fascinating facts from the old days .

Not quite that old.... yet but I am working on it!