SC - period chicken feed
LrdRas at aol.com
LrdRas at aol.com
Sat Dec 18 19:19:09 PST 1999
In a message dated 12/18/99 7:30:05 PM Eastern Standard Time,
stefan at texas.net writes:
<< ou can't assume these were their regular diets.
>>
And you cannot assume they were not regular diets. You have not yet clearly
indicated why you assume they were not fed grains other than a vague
reference to 'grain wastage' which was based on an erroneous idea of a modern
chickens diet and most certainly was not based on any real concept of animal
feeding either in the modern world or pre-industrial revolution. Your second
suggestion somehow intertwined the domestication of horses in some dim time
of the past which was outside any time period that could be remotely
connected to medieval agricultural practices.
I would very much like to see any one on this list maintain the flocks of
chickens capable of producing the thousands of eggs used in a medieval feast
without the use of modern feed lot methods let alone without the use of
supplemental grain feeding. To do so in a medieval setting without the
knowledge of modern scientific feeding methods in a free range situation
without the use of grain supplements would be impossible.
Common sense seems to be the overriding factor in determining the answer to
what they fed the chickens. Common sense demands that well fed animals be
maintained or their domestication and breeding becomes useless and
burdensome. If your assumption that grain was more important than the animals
it nourished is accurate then there is no reason for animals to have been
kept at all.
I have great respect for your quest for knowledge but am oftentimes amazed at
your apparent inability to grasp exactly what the phrase 'agricultural
society' means. This was the way of life of the vast majority of people in
the middle ages and the reason for the existence of the small number of
people supplying support services. It was not a secondary concern as it seems
to have become in today's world. A handful of grain thrown by the peasant
matron to her chickens assured the eggs laid tomorrow. Eggs which were far
more valuable than the grain used to produce them.
Ras
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