Why did eggs have to be rationed during the War? More people kept chickens.They weren't imported.Propaganda??

The rationing that was done during WWII had very little to do with importing products. It was all about needing the stuff for the war effort, for the troops! Some foods, like flour and sugar were rationed. Gasoline and oil was rationed, for obvious reasons! Tires were rationed! All for the good of the country and the good of our military, who were involved in a horrendous war! Did you know that on D-Day,( the invasion of france) there were over 6,000 American lives lost within a 24 hour period! That's right! one day! People today are pissing and moaning about our losses in the Afghan and Iraqi war. Less than 4'000 in what, six years? I personally think that any life lost is a terrible thing, but one does have to take it in perspective.

Even if more people had chickens, they were small scale producers, especially if compared to the mighty battery farms of today. There were more of all types of farmers back then, but supplies were short all the same. Imports were reduced, and more had to go abroad as food for the troops. Perhaps there was an element of propaganda to the rationing system, in that it bolstered the nation and made people use resources ingeniously, but I think there was a genuine need for it. Eggs probably weren't more plentiful back then, and even if they were, there's a lot of foods that weren't, so they would have had to spin eggs out to meet the shortfall.

I didn't see many chicken runs in the middle of Salford or Manchester. The eggs that were commercially produced were powdered to feed the services and to provide food for the hospitals.

Yes eggs were imported on any spare space by the brave merchant sailors who were bringing all supplies to UK.

We couldn't feed ourselves without those imports.

Try doing your research before you make such sweeping statements. Have you ever seen a ration book?

Shortage of labour and feedstuff. Farmers had to concetrate on essential foods.

Propaganda only came in after the war with the labour government who reduced the rations to less than they had been during the war and even created a bread shortage. All rationing stopped within months once the had been thrown out of power.

Rationing is about supply and demand. You add up the number off eggs being laid each day and divide by the number of people. A lot of people kept chickens, but most people didn't have the space or facilities.

All foodstuff sold into the market was rationed...with priority of distribution to the fighting forces. If you had chickens that produced eggs for personal consumption this was not part of rationing...just had to post a guard on the hen house.

The reason is quite simple. Food produced within the UK was rationed to the civilian population to allow troops to be fed to keep up their fitness for fighting.

The troops had to be fed overseas..... at the time there were not many practical ways of providing troops in the field with high protein meals...... eggs were one of the few options, they wer dried and powdered...the government rationed them at home to provide them the GIs...

They ate powderd egg. couldn't possibly be anything like somebody seeing a profit could it?

I dont think there where that many chickens, wheat was very scarse so they couldn't feed the chickens.