From Farm to Frying-Pan

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 800, 19 November 1954, Page 19

From Farm to Frying-Pan

Alas, my child, where is the pen That can do justice to the hen? Like royalty she goes her way Laying foundations every day, Though not for public buildings yet For custard cakes and omelette. . . ND for goodness knows how many breakfasts, too, of course, in. which eggs-fried, boiled, poached, scrambled -are the essential item. New Zealanders alone eat more than 400,000,000 of them each year, which makes the humble chook the production unit in a pretty important primary industry. In fact, when Brucé Broadhead, Rural Talks Officer at 1YA, decided to make a programme about the poultry industry he found that there were 400 or so large-scale poultry farmers in New Zealand, not to mention the large number. of very small scale backyard sources of

the odd few fresh eggs for the kitchen. It’s around large-scale production that Mr. Broadhead has written and produced two documentary programmes with the title The Golden Egg. The first will be heard at 9.30 p.m. on Monday, November 22, and the second at the Same time next evening. Later these programmes will be heard from other stations. The Golden Egg might almost be called "from the egg to the egg," because Mr. Broadhead is on hand with his microphone when the selection of breeding stock i§ discussed by an experienced poultry farmer-the selection, that is, of the chook that will lay the eggs that will produce the chooks that will lay the eggs-and he’s still doggedly pursuing the inside story when the egg shells are being separated from the yolks and the whites in the pulping plant and the pulp in 28-pound tins120 tins at a time-is being hustled into the freezing chambers. On the pretty direct but not altogether straight line between these two points these programmes explain such mysteries as incubation and correct feeding (a matter, it seems, on which there’s room for a difference of opinion), chicken sexing, culling (when and why), proper housing, grading, marketing, research-and right at the end he visits a poultry market to find out what happens to the chook that doesn’t make the grade. The Golden Egg isn’t just for the listener with a special interest in the poultry industry. It’s a programme of pretty general appeal, which includes advice even for those who never see an egg outside the kitchen-advice, that is, on keeping them away from smells (which they absorb through their shells), on preserving and cleaning and testing for freshness-and on how many eggs you should eat if you want to keep héalthy.