Fritzi, Otto the Rooster and His Flock of Hens E-Book

DaniEla Haff

• Herausgeber: novum publishing
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 98

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

Fritzi knows a lot about chickens. Whenever she visits her grandparents, Fritzi Otto watches the rooster and his flock of chickens and learns everything about the life of a chicken. But when Olivia the chicken comes along, Fritzi experiences the miracle of natural breeding for the first time. And when grandma and grandpa show up at school with the incubator, the chicken fever breaks out here too! Students, teachers and parents wait impatiently for the 21st day. Will chicks hatch?

Leseprobe

Dedication

Corns

Fritzi wakes up when Grandma and Grandpa quietly sneak out of the bedroom.

It's five o'clock in the morning. The sun is just making its way through the clouds. Fritzi pulls the blanket up to the tip of her nose and snuggles in. It's summer vacation and Fritzi is allowed to spend it with Grandma and Grandpa. Grandma and Grandpa live outside a small village, far away from the big city, in the middle of huge fields. There are no more than 50 houses in the small village, but there is a village square with a playground and a bakery. And because there is only one baker far and wide, people from the surrounding villages come to the bakery to buy rolls, bread and crumble snails.

Fritzi loves crumble snails. Grandpa knows this too and brings Fritzi one every morning.

With the first rays of sunshine, the birds begin to chirp and the small village with its many animals perks up.

Fritzi's eyes are closed, but his ears are wide awake. Fritzi hears Grandma pouring water into a pot. Grandpa scratches in the wood stove and prepares the fire.

Grandma and Grandpa still have an old wood-burning stove in the kitchen. There is a modern electric stove next to it, but Grandpa always says: "It's cheaper to heat with wood."

Fritzi can hear Grandpa scraping the cold ashes out of the stove with a poker. Then wood bangs against the sheet metal of the stove and onto the firebricks. It's Grandpa putting the logs into the old kitchen stove. "Kzzzz", Fritzi hears. Grandpa has lit a match. A small fire flickers in Fritzi's mind and Fritzi almost falls asleep again when Grandpa closes the oven door with a clatter.

Grandma puts the pot on the stove. The pot is heavy and plops onto the hob. Then it goes quiet. Fritzi knows that Grandma and Grandpa are in the bathroom getting ready for the day.

And then the time has come. Fritzi can smell it right away. After her ears, her nose is now also awake. And the nose calls out: get up!

Fritzi opens her eyes and jumps out of bed. In no time at all, Fritzi dashes into the living room and gets dressed. When Fritzi comes into the kitchen, Grandma is just draining the water from the boiled potatoes. "Good morning, Fritzi!" says Grandma happily. "On time as always." She puts the pot on the stove. Then she takes Fritzi firmly in her arms and strokes Fritzi's dark, curly hair. Grandma is warm and cuddly soft and smells of potatoes. It is precisely this smell that has woken Fritzi up.

They both put their shoes on and Fritzi runs ahead, Grandma follows with the bucket of potatoes. Fritzi dashes across the yard to the laundry room. There is a large container of grain.

Grandpa has crushed a wide variety of cereal grains in the grist mill andground them up. Corn, oats, wheat, rye and spelt crumbs are mixed together in a large garbage can. Fritzi uses a small pot to scoop out the grist, i.e. the crushed grains.

Grandma, who is walking past Fritzi, opens the chicken enclosure and pours the potatoes into the feeding trough. Fritzi spreads the meal over the potatoes. Then Fritzi grabs the potato masher. With a lot of force, Fritzi presses it into the still steaming potatoes. A lot of potatoes have to be mashed. This is hard work. While Fritzi crushes the potatoes, they cool down. "That's enough," says Grandma. Fritzi gives Grandma the potato masher and dashes to the chicken coop. The chickens in the coop have heard Grandma and Fritzi and finally want to get out. They scratch and cluck.

"Cock-a-doodle-doo!", Fritzi hears Otto call. Otto is the rooster, the boss of the flock of hens. He keeps the henhouse tidy. Grandma opens the flap. Fritzi and Grandma standto the right and left of the chicken flap on the wall, because now it's getting stormy. The chickens cluck loudly and rush out of the coop, followed by Otto. He has fluffed himself up and follows the last chicken to the feeding trough. Otto is a particularly handsome rooster. He is taller than his hens and has a tall, dark red comb and long red wattles.

When Otto was on Grandma's arm, Fritzi was allowed to stroke the comb. Otto's comb was warm, almost hot. Grandma said that a lot of blood flows through the comb and that's why it's so warm. Fritzi also knows that roosters use their combs to impress the hens. The more blood that flows through the comb, the darker the comb and the more attractive the rooster is to the hens.

Otto is particularly attractive because his feathers are also more colorful than those of his hens. His long tail feathers are particularly pretty. They are green, white,black and brown and shiny. When Otto fluffs himself up, he gets bigger. Fritzi finds that impressive.

Every chicken now wants the best feeding place. As a result, the chickens keep swapping places. Otto doesn't like this at all. He prances threateningly and with fluffed up feathers after every chicken that gets out of line. It looks particularly funny when Otto walks sideways. Fritzi and Grandma laugh.

When another hen moves away from the feeding trough to look for a better spot, Otto has had enough. First he flutters his wings loudly and threateningly. Then he pecks the hen's neck with his beak. The chicken scurries back to the feeding trough and Otto dances around the flock of chickens again. One eye observes the surroundings and the other looks at his chickens. Otto always keeps an eye on everything. All the chickens are eating. Otto only eats when the chickens are almost full.

Fritzi knows that chickens have particularly well-functioning eyes. As their eyes are on the side, they can use each eye independently of the other. So, with one eye they can search for food on the ground and with the other eye they can keep an eye out for predators in the air.

When chickens keep moving their heads back and forth, they form a picture of their surroundings. Then, like humans, they can see spatially.

Chickens can not only see much faster than humans, but also much more accurately. They can detect tiny insects up to five meters away.

Fritzi once measured a distance of five meters with Grandpa's tape measure and placed a ladybug at the mark. But Fritzi could no longer see the ladybug after just two meters.

Chickens can even see more colors than humans. But Fritzi can't imagine how this is supposed to work. Chickens only have very poor eyesight in the dark. Fritzi then also needs a flashlight.

Grandma interrupts Fritzi's thoughts: "Shall we have breakfast too?"

"I'm really hungry," replies Fritzi, forming a big ball with her arms and dancing around Grandma. Just like Otto. Laughing, they walk back to the house.

The egg

Grandpa has just come from the bakery. He has brought fresh bread rolls and a crumble bun for Fritzi. They set the table together. Grandma adds the eggs. Fritzi loves eggs and takes the dark brown egg straight away.

Fritzi cracks the boiled egg on the table. The eggshell is already cracked and stands out white against the dark brown shell. Fritzi hits the egg on the table again. Many white cracks can now be seen on the shell. Fritzi begins to peel the individual pieces off the egg with her fingers. But somehow it doesn't really work today. Again and again, Fritzi pulls out a piece of the egg white. But giving up is not an option. Concentrating hard, Fritzi carefully and slowly peels one piece of shell after another from the egg.

A thin white skin hangs from the eggshell. "Grandma, what is that?" "It's a membrane that protects the egg white from dirt, viruses and bacteria." "I've never seen it before," says Fritzi. "You can only see it when the egg is cooked. The egg is protected by lots of membranes." Fritzi looks at Grandma in amazement. Grandma fetches a raw egg and two plates. She cracks the egg and separates the white from the yolk. The egg white spreads out a little on the plate. The yolk lies like a ball on the other plate. "Because the egg yolk is held in place by a membrane, the yolk membrane, it doesn't melt on the plate. You can even gently push it back and forth." Fritzi pushes the egg yolk around on the plate with her finger. "That's funny," says Fritzi with a laugh.

"Look here!" says Grandma, pointing to a small, light-colored spot in the egg yolk with a needle she takes out of the sewing box. "That's the germinal disk. The germinal disk is alsoprotected by a membrane. If the egg is fertilized, a chick can emerge from the germinal disc. But watch what happens if I prick the yolk with a needle now." "Can I do that?" asks Fritzi excitedly.

Grandma gives Fritzi the needle. Fritzi carefully pierces the yolk membrane. It only takes a moment and the yolk spreads out on the plate. Grandma fishes around in the yolk with the blunt end of the needle. When she lifts the needle, something yellow and firm hangs from it. "That's the yolk membrane. The membrane that protects the yolk and keeps it in shape," says Grandma.

Fritzi carefully grabs the yolk membrane with just two fingers. It is more delicate than the white membrane of Fritzi's boiled egg. But Fritzi can feel it precisely.

Grandma gets another egg and another plate from the kitchen. She cracks another egg. This time she lets the egg whiteand the yolk plop together onto a plate. The yolk lies in a ball in the middle of the egg white. It's always like this, Fritzi thinks.

Grandma continues: "The egg yolk is always protected from the egg white in the middle of the egg. Two hail cords at the top and bottom of the yolk make sure it doesn't slip. The hail cords connect the yolk to the shell skin." Grandma points the needle at two thick, whitish, slippery strings.

Fritzi can see the two hail strings clearly. One hail string is at the top of the egg yolk and the other is at the bottom. One of the two hail strings is longer than the other. That's crazy, thinks Fritzi.

Grandma continues: "The protein is protected by two membranes. These are called shell membranes. There is an air chamber between the two shell membranes at the blunt end of the egg." Grandma picks at her boiled egg and shows Fritzi the air chamber at the blunt end of her egg.

Fritzi watches Grandma in amazement. "When a chick is born in the egg, it gets air through the air bubble." Grandma gives Fritzi a piece of shell. "The eggshell is made up of lots of holes. They are also called pores. The air can be exchanged through them. The membrane on the outer shell of the egg also lets air into the egg, but not dirt or germs."

Fritzi's head is spinning. Eggs are a miracle of nature and so complicated. Fritzi is overwhelmed and looks at the shell in her hand. But even on closer inspection, Fritzi can't see any holes in the shell. Maybe Fritzi should ask Dad for a microscope. But Grandma snaps Fritzi out of her thoughts.

"Have you counted how many membranes an egg has?"

Fritzi thinks about it and puts her thumb up. "The germinal disk has a membrane." Fritzi continues counting and stretches out her index finger. "The yolk membrane