88/32/1-26

The Chicken and The Egg: Celebrating Poultry Heritage, Home Grown Housing

These are twenty six small, plastic chicken leg rings in variety of colours as follows: 7 x black & white striped, 2 x blue & white striped, 6 x pink, plain, 3 x blue, plain, 3 x grey, plain, 1 x green, plain, 1 x patterned in colours, 1 x red coiled plastic and 2 x white coiled plastic. They were used for marking or identifying poultry. They are part of the Lucas Collection of objects and documents donated to the Museum by Mr Lucas, a farmer and dairyman from Reading, Berkshire.

26 leg rings for chickens: plastic; good condition

MERL 'Handwritten accession' form (Institute of Agricultural History) – 'Standard museum name: LEG RINGS // Accession number: 88/32/1-26 // Classification: LIVESTOCK Poultry // Negative number: 60/15475 // Acquisition method: GIFT // Acquired from, date: H. B. LUCAS, [...], 10 June 1988 // Store: small object // Condition: good // Recorder, date: JMB 2.3.89 // Description: Twenty six plastic chicken leg rings as follows: // 6 pink plastic, plain // 7 black & white striped plastic // 1 green plastic plain // 3 blue plastic plain // 3 grey plastic plain // 1 patterned in colours // 1 red coiled plastic // 2 white coiled plastic // Dimensions: Diameter: 1.5-2.00cm Width: 0.5cm // Associated information: Used for marking or identifying poultry. // References:', MERL Miscellaneous note, Greta Bertram, 19 February 2014 – The Lucas Collection contains objects (88/23–88/43) and documents (D90/8/1–21) donated by Mr H. B. Lucas, a farmer and dairyman. Mr Lucas kept chickens, cows and pigs on his smallholding in Whitley Wood Road, Reading, and retired in 1971. The Lucas family farmed in a small way at Lane End Farm in Shinfield, Reading, from the end of the nineteenth century. Mr Lucas’ grandfather built Lane End House, and brought threshing machines to Berkshire, and his uncle was a threshing tackle contractor with premises opposite the farm. The objects in the Collection were used by Mr Lucas on his smallholding and in conjunction with his dairy business. The documents (now in the MERL Archives) consist of show catalogues for poultry and fancier's associations, prize certificates for eggs and poultry, record cards for egg production and newspaper cuttings about shows.