Good News for egg lovers The humble egg has a lot going for it in the health stakes. Eggs contain the highest quality and most digestible proteins, are low in kilojoules, contain every vitamin (except for C) as well as a large range of minerals, and contain less than 6g of fat of which only 2g is saturated. And while it was once thought eggs were a major contributor to high blood cholesterol levels, CSIRO research has shown that most people can eat two eggs a day and show no increase in cholesterol levels. Eating three eggs a day only increased blood cholesterol levels by the same amount as eating just 10g of butter or 30g of cheese daily. Page Two: Eggs & Cholesterol

Before getting on to the more serious part on eggs you might like to read part of an extract from Robyn Williams program, 'Ockham's Razor' of Sunday 28 May 2000 on 'Radio National'
Australia Broadcasting Corporation:

Robyn Williams is talking to Andrew Herrick. Andrew Herrick is a writer and Carpenter living in Melbourne, he also knows a fair bit about chicken behaviour as this interview shows. According to the CSIRO Melbourne has the second highest density of foxes in the world, behind Liverpool's disused docklands in the UK.

I could write an article myself on Melbourne's foxes and the places I've seen them at night, I have lost more hens from foxes in my suburban back garden at Box Hill ( 12 kilometres from the CBD of Melbourne), than I did during my twelve years of poultry farming at Tyabb ( a country area 35 kilometres from Melbourne). And at Tyabb we had 20,000 birds mated, all running on the floor, some with open grass runs in front of them. But that is a story for another day. Here I will concentrate on Andrew Herrick's story.

For the sake of space I have only been able to include here a part of what he has to say about the behaviour of chickens:

ut the chicken's social structure also improves its chances of hatching a new generation and rearing it to maturity. It's usual for only one hen in a flock to become broody, as her oestrogen levels soar. This coincides with the clutch containing the maximum number of eggs that will fit comfortably warm beneath her. To boost production efficiency, this natural trait has been bred out of battery fowls altogether. Some of them are so hormonally compromised that in Spring they'll sometimes crow, and even attempt to mate with other hens.

In the wilder breeds though, once a chicken becomes broody, it remains on its clutch, quiet and motionless almost constantly for 21 days until hatching is complete. The rest of the flock, meanwhile, averaging about six hens per rooster, will fossick for food in the vicinity of the nest. They'll mark the boundaries of their range, and any transitional landmark, with droppings. Another habit useful in the jungle, where sight lines are obscured by un-dergrowth, but less desirable at the threshold of the coop.

Once a day the broody chicken will briefly make a dash for water, only to be encouraged by the pecks of other hens back onto their eggs. This co-operative behaviour, in which one chicken incubates the eggs of others to whom she's probably related, has clear biological advantages. This is confirmed by the observation that most chickens, apart from the bat-tery breeds, will seldom attempt to eat eggs. Since they can never be sure which of the eggs in a clutch are their own, all are treated with respect. A broken egg, on the other hand, has no chance of hatching and is instantly eaten with gusto, thus providing nutrition for another viable egg.

The biology behind egg formation is complex and fascinating. Such is a mother's love, that the hen gets the calcium for making egg shells by sacrificing up to 30% of her own bone mass in the process. The addition of shell-grit to a hen's diet extends the laying rate beyond this biological constraint, as does a diet replete with shelled insect in the wild.

You may be surprised to learn that eggs emerge from chickens blunt-end first, but this is really quite logical. The peristaltic motion of a chicken's oviduct operates in the same way as our own alimentary canal. It's a tube made of muscular rings, which contract in se-quence. Squeezing the sharp-end of an egg more efficiently moves it on its way. This can be demonstrated by squeezing each end of an egg on a circle formed by your finger and thumb. An egg travelling sharp-end first through a chicken is also more likely to tilt and wedge, resulting in that sorriest of beasts, an egg-bound chook.

Unlike we humans, the chicken has a single sexual and excretory orifice, the cloaca. But this reptilian organ does display a functional similarity to the mammalian cervix during copulation, as it protrudes and sucks up the semen deposited on its surface by the rooster. Evolution appears to have internalised this physiological structure in mammals and also rerouted the alimentary canal, elevating the act of sex somewhat. Chicken sex is far from romantic. There is little need for display or courting behaviour by either gender, since the act is performed so regularly, especially in Spring. After what appears to be little more than rape, the rooster immediately ascends to his perch and broadcasts the news of his conquest, and what may be the beginning of a new generation.

Once hatched, chicks can survive for up to seven days on the remains of the yolk attached to their crops. This gives them time to adjust to a hostile environment, and to learn how to scratch for their own food. For the first two months of their life, they'll be offered morsels by their mother, and also by their aunties and grandmothers. The sound hens make when offering food to their chicks is similar to the sound roosters make for the same purpose. On hearing it, the chicks immediately run to investigate.

I've identified at least five distinct sounds that chickens use to communicate. One is the rooster's warning cry, which causes the hens to spring to attention, then quickly put the rooster between themselves and the source of the threat; usually that's me. There's also the oddly neurotic clucking a broody chicken makes when emerging from her nest to drink, which prompts the other hens to aggressively chase her back to the communal clutch of eggs.

One of the most distinctive expressions in the chicken lexicon occurs when my fowls spot a bird of prey. This sharp chirrup causes the entire flock to quickly dash beneath our orange trees, from where they anxiously scan the sky. Raptors rarely fly over our place, but since we live near an airport, many light planes do. It's intriguing to see a battery hen utter this same warning cry at the sight of their first Cessna. What's remarkable is that this visual stimulus is still hard-wired into its brain, even after many generations have never seen the sky. Eventually, the new additions to the flock will ignore aircraft, though some remain deeply suspicious of seagulls.

The fourth sound is uttered by my chickens as a group, when I deny them access to their backyard paradise, and indulgence in their favourite activities: scratching in the soil for insects, and dust bathing. It uncannily resembles the rising tone issued by any human infant when denied something, yes, it appears the basic tonal signature of whingeing is universal.

Further evidence for our shared biology with chickens when I let mine out of their coop and into the vegetable garden. Nothing delights chickens more than a patch of disturbed soil, and watching them work it over evokes a scene from the very dawn of agriculture, when their species and ours began a long, symbiotic relationship. As my chickens diligently go about their business, they chant a pleasant chorus of contentment, which also has a soothing effect on me.

Good day, and cluck-cluck to you, too.

Robyn Williams: Thank you. And I'll take that as a friendly cheerio. Andrew Herrick is a wine-maker, carpenter and writer who lives with his birds in Melbourne, just beneath the flight path.

Full article (www.abc.net.au)