Eggs are not needed. Chickpea flour mixed with water one to one ratio is a perfect egg substitute.
Auburn University took chicken manure, dehydrated it, soaked it with molasses, then fed it to cows.
So if your trip to Mars is 3 months then your chickens will be 5 weeks old when landing on Mars.I believe, don't know for sure, that their bones are not yet completly solid at this age. In other words they are likely to bend rather than break under load. This should aid them being able to withstand landing G forces. How much? Unknown.You only need to get 1 female chicken on Mars. Artificially inseminate from then on to gain genetic diversity in the flock.
Colon cancer, prostate cancer and breast cancer and liver cancer all occur in much higher frequencies because of our unhealthy obsession with animal protein.The caloric density and year round availability of animal protein was important a few hundred years ago but has been rendered obsolete by abundance.Just as smoking was slowly backed out, within 50-100 years you will start to see labels on animal products that state "this product causes heart disease, increased risk of stroke, cancer and death."That being said if you want to eat eggs because they taste good that is fine. Just don't try to tell me that Mars colonists will need animal products to survive. As it is, there is going to be quite the skin cancer epidemic on Mars. It would be nice if we left some of the diseases associated with gluttony back on earth.
Quote from: spacenut on 06/16/2016 01:06 pmAuburn University took chicken manure, dehydrated it, soaked it with molasses, then fed it to cows.So glad I'm not a cow.
Quote from: ChrisWilson68 on 06/17/2016 07:00 amQuote from: spacenut on 06/16/2016 01:06 pmAuburn University took chicken manure, dehydrated it, soaked it with molasses, then fed it to cows.So glad I'm not a cow.In the US, cattle are also fed urea synthesized using natural gas and air. For human spaceflight applications, the water recycling system will recover urea which could be used for food production. Besides cattle fodder and plant fertilizer, another possibility would be cultivating mycoprotein (e.g. "Quorn" brand) in a sugar solution with recovered urea.
The way chicken drink depends on gravity. Probably some kind of force feeding will be necessary in microgravity. If a way can be found to defer hatching until after landing things would be much easier.
I think we must transport live animals.Lets say your chickens hatch out on the journey or after arrival on Mars. Where are they going to get all the gut bacteria they require to digest their food? It won't be in their sterile space capsule or Mars habitat environments would it?
Some of that has recently been proven wrong. Genetics plays a 90% or greater roll in various disease. Eskimos in Alaska were studied. Their diet was 80% meat, fish, caribou, with very little in the way of vegetation. They had virtually no diabetes, and no heart disease. They only got those diseases after consuming processed foods and sweets. I have lost 20-30 pounds on a mostly animal protein diet with low carb vegetables and fruits, very little sugars, white bread, potatoes or rice, and my cholesterol has dropped from 252 to 135. Hmmm. I also eat two eggs a day, not scrambled as I like the soft yokes over easy. I eat bacon, beef, chicken, fish, and shrimp, green, yellow, and orange vegetables. I sometimes eat a little bread, rice, or potatoes, but only about once a week. Most westerners are not vegans, so they will like their meat and protein, also most far easterners eat meat. Fish and chicken are eventually going to be a MUST HAVE on Mars.
Quote from: spacenut on 06/17/2016 12:14 pmSome of that has recently been proven wrong. Genetics plays a 90% or greater roll in various disease. Eskimos in Alaska were studied. Their diet was 80% meat, fish, caribou, with very little in the way of vegetation. They had virtually no diabetes, and no heart disease. >Interesting. As it seems easier to grow protein (e.g. fish) on Mars compared to carbohydrate (grains, pasts, rice etc), perhaps Martians will have to adapt to that diet.
Some of that has recently been proven wrong. Genetics plays a 90% or greater roll in various disease. Eskimos in Alaska were studied. Their diet was 80% meat, fish, caribou, with very little in the way of vegetation. They had virtually no diabetes, and no heart disease. >
This also ties into artificial womb technology, if we can just avoid discussing humans.Apparently there was some sort of success with a goat womb? I know embryos can be frozen for years. I wonder how far we are away from freezing a hen embryo and then gestating it in an artificial egg. If the embryo can survive freezing, what part of an egg does not? Can it be reassembled later from the necessary components?