BDutch's bantam flock & natural breeding projects #5 🪺 🪺 and #6

[RoyalChick]

NRC newspaper published a nice to read interview. Autotranslated:

Spoiler: Article interview about PFAS

PFAS in my eggs? I'm not going to do,' says the chicken farmer after RIVM's warning

Background

Hobby chickens Don't eat eggs from private individuals anymore, RIVM advised last week. Exaggerated, say people with chickens. "I don't eat an egg less for it."

Authors Martine Kamsma
Published on April 20, 2025

RIVM called last week to stop eating private eggs throughout the Netherlands. Samples showed that people already received more PFAS than the limit value if they eat less than one egg a week.

Eight clumsy chickens scramble in the garden of Alma Huisken in the North Groningen village of Molenrij. The five wyandottes are retired. With red cones they occasionally press out an egg. Three younger farm chickens are still laying in abundance, from early spring until September. Huisken and her partner each eat three to five eggs a week in the good months. And sometimes a goose egg, of the eight geese that also waggle around here.

Grass, a pond, scrub, groves and a soil full of worms and insects – they live like a god here in Groningen. Huisken is so captivated by chicken love, that she even wrote a book about it: The green chicken book, course and cookbook in one.

"PFAS-gein", Huisken calls the call of health institute RIVM last week to stop eating private eggs throughout the Netherlands. She thinks the advice is exaggerated. "If we do test, why not the chicken feed and all possible pesticides on it?"

RIVM took samples at sixty locations. On 31 of them, people already get more PFAS than the limit value if they eat less than one egg a week, it turned out. And taking too many of these microscopic plastic particles and chemical compounds for too long can be harmful to health, including the defense against diseases.

"PFAS are everywhere in it," she says. Why the magnifying glass on eggs? She knows the answer. „There is constant messing with poultry farming – bird flu, storage obligation, high prices – it is good for the industry if people no longer eat and buy hobby eggs.”

Huisken (69), has been angry about foaming poison in rivers and pesticide use in agriculture for half a century. And yes, when she still lived near the blast furnaces in IJmuiden, she also tasted iron in north wind when she was outside. „But I have been living on very healthy land for 21 years, where poison or fertilizer has never been added. PFAS in my eggs? I'm not going to.”

Not every private individual with chickens in the garden is so sure of that, see the owners of Testenoppfas.nl, which sells PFAS eget tests. They have received about three hundred orders a day since last week's news, says Lars Roelofse. While normally there are sometimes days without orders.

Test kit at 269.50 euros

Testenoppfas has been working together with the accredited laboratory Normec since last year to meet demand, after the NVWA also advised not to eat eggs from hobby chickens in March last year. „We heard that only companies could have it tested. We thought: why shouldn't private individuals be able to do that?”

Customers receive a test kit at 269.50 euros in which they put ten eggs, which they send to the lab. There they are tested on 25 different substances that fall under the name PFAS. At the bottom of the test report is the sum of the concentration of all those substances in their eggs. And what percentage is this of the EU standard. „We are very careful with interpreting the results: for health questions we refer to the GGD. Whether people still consume their eggs is up to them”, says Roelofse.

Testenoppfas receives orders from all over the Netherlands, even from Belgium. „We see very different results, but they are not tied to certain regions. My brother-in-law, for example, who turned out to have huge amounts of PFAS in his eggs. As it turned out: in his garden, a barn was once burned down and extinguished with PFAS-containing foam. You don't always know what's in the bottom.”

Biodiversity and soil life

Sible Westendorp also has such a story. He himself has Frisian country hens and a few New Hampshires. They live in an indoor loft with a small run where the chickens walk on wood flakes and tree bark. His eggs tested 'clean'. "While I live near Roosendaal, almost under the smoke of the chemical factories of 3M near Antwerp."

A few hundred meters away, the neighbor's chickens walk in a lush garden. "There, the neighbor tested extremely high," says Westendorp, who, in addition to hobby chicken keeper, is also a veterinarian, specializing in hobby poultry. "That's the sad thing: that this just affects people who cherish the biodiversity in their garden, and have a gigantic soil life there."

The tricky thing about self-testing, says Westendorp, is that some substances under the PFAS umbrella are more harmful than others. This makes it difficult for private chicken farmers to properly assess the risks. „RIVM needs to provide more clarity on this. No one knows exactly what risks we are talking about.”

For more reasons, Westendorp, also chairman of KleindierNed, a umbrella organization of animal husbandry organizations, is "not so happy" with the RIVM report. The samples do not show what risks there are at which locations. PFAS can come from industry, but are also very locally in the ground. And so there are no solutions.

„Actually you say: we have poisoned the world so much that you are no longer allowed to eat your own eggs. But then you won't be able to eat a lot more that hasn't been investigated now. Because even without eggs, the Dutch get too much PFAS. We have ended up in a world where you can only eat food produced under controlled conditions.”

The chicken doctor sees that people are slowly becoming grumbling from all the poison messages. Temporarily they may eat a little less hobby eggs, he says, "but that soon disappears".

In Groningen, says Alma Huisken, you can still buy eggs anywhere along the road. And she doesn't know anyone who gets rid of their chickens because of PFAS. She herself sees only one solution: "Make sure you do the best you can do on your own piece of land. At least I don't eat an egg less for it.”

Yes. Exactly this. Why the microscope on eggs?

 

[Skyeknight]

Where is the data that commercial eggs are lower in PFAS?
And what is the underlying theory for why commercial eggs should be ‘cleaner’? It cannot surely be that backyard chickens eat a few earthworms.

That is a good point, its why I was confused they pooled commercial eggs with home produced eggs in a figure. They compare it to previous studies on commercial eggs, it's in the discussion. Ofcourse it can't be questioned if those studies can be compared to this one. The theory is that commercial chickens don't walk on actual soil with plants and insects. To me it does make sense that when chicken free range and eat vegetation and insects from contaminated soil they can ingest a decent amount of PFAS.

Then, as I have understood it, PFAS are everywhere. I just read 90% of bottled water contains PFAS (I don’t know at what level) so that would make me want to test a range of other things I eat.

This is something I pointed out before. Are they gonna tell me the few insects chickens eat make that big a difference between the only vegetation eating animals like cows and sheep? Their milk and meat will probably also test insanely high for PFAS.

Yes. Exactly this. Why the microscope on eggs?

In the study they said it was because of findings in a previous study.
"This RIVM risk assessment was prompted by the discovery in 2024 o fsignificant amounts of PFAS in eggs laid by privately owned chickens in the surroundings of the Chemours chemical plant in the Dutch provinceof South Holland."

 

[BDutch]

Yes. Exactly this. Why the microscope on eggs?

Do you mean the focus on eggs?1 Or are you referring to microscopic in the article?2

1 ^^ Skyeknight
2 The sentence was auto translated a bit wrong.
The Dutch ‘microscopisch kleine plasticdeeltjes’ is not the same as ‘microscopic plastic particles’ . It should have been translated to: microscopically small plastic particles.

 

[BDutch]

@Skyeknight My husband has been reading on LinkedIn a claim of someone who tested his eggs twice.
First time he gave the chickens feed from the Welkoop shop. He tested red for PFAS.
After that he started to feed Bio-Ron organic feed. Second time he tested he tested green.
I tried to find the feed to be sure. But can’t find it.

 

[Perris]

For as far as I can read this abstract they only collected eggs from Greece and had 14 volunteers that got a total of 75 eggs, which is less than the Dutch study.

this paper yes is just about the Greek study, but it cites in support / its references include similar studies in Belgium and Italy as well as Holland.

 

[Perris]

First time he gave the chickens feed from the Welkoop shop. He tested red for PFAS.
After that he started to feed Bio-Ron organic feed. Second time he tested he tested green.

A long time ago and where I can no longer remember, I posted a link to a piece about the inclusion of some plastic packaging being allowed in chicken feed. Trying to find it again I ran across a Dutch translation (how weird is that?) https://www.plasticsoupfoundation.org/nieuws/inconceivable-allowing-plastic-in-livestock-feed/

I really don't understand why people think the source is a mystery. It's like the mystery of how bird flu appeared in US cattle. All this science and somehow they can't see the nose in front of their face. Look at what the animals are eating.

 

[Skyeknight]

@Skyeknight My husband has been reading on LinkedIn a claim of someone who tested his eggs twice.
First time he gave the chickens feed from the Welkoop shop. He tested red for PFAS.
After that he started to feed Bio-Ron organic feed. Second time he tested he tested green.
I tried to find the feed to be sure. But can’t find it.

Is there a way for you to share that post? I would love to see it. There are 2 things to consider with a post like this. Firstly is it true at all and secondly is it representative of all welkoop and bio-ron organic feed. If we assume both to be true then it could imply 2 things:

1. It is a coincidence. The welkoop just happened to buy ingredients from PFAS rich soils, while Bio-ron just happened to buy them from soils without PFAS.
2. As far as I know the biggest difference is the allowed use in pesticides for commercial crops and the no tolerance of it for organic and biological crops. If the amount of PFAS in the soil is roughly the same amount then the biggestes difference are the pesticides used.

A long time ago and where I can no longer remember, I posted a link to a piece about the inclusion of some plastic packaging being allowed in chicken feed. Trying to find it again I ran across a Dutch translation (how weird is that?) https://www.plasticsoupfoundation.org/nieuws/inconceivable-allowing-plastic-in-livestock-feed/

This is ofcourse not taking this into account, which could also make quite a difference. I feel like I have never heard of it but I could be wrong. I don't remember ever finding something like this in my chicken or sheep feed. But it is known that plastic wrappings for food isn't healthy to consumers. Also the fact that I just read there is chocolate in animal feed is so wrong on so many levels.

I really don't understand why people think the source is a mystery. It's like the mystery of how bird flu appeared in US cattle. All this science and somehow they can't see the nose in front of their face. Look at what the animals are eating.

I think it is mainly that scientists shouldn't just put theories out there without data to back it up. Which is why I don't like the current study without any actual exposure routes. As for the citizens I feel like we are just kinda in shock and panicking from this sudden advice to not eat any eggs at all. I do not think it's comparable to bird flu as PFAS can come from a lot of different sources and build up while bird flu obviously comes from wild birds, mainly waterfowl.

 

[Perris]

I don't remember ever finding something like this in my chicken or sheep feed

because as soon as it became public knowledge they started chopping up the pieces smaller so that the blue bits are now invisible to the naked eye.

bird flu obviously comes from wild birds, mainly waterfowl.

originally yes, but when industrial chicken sheds' poultry litter is included as an ingredient in cattle feed, and industrial chickens are the largest (by far) incubators of bird flu (because of the cramped conditions in which they live, and industrial chickens' genetic frailty), chicken poo containing the AI virus is going to get into cattle feed. On an industrial scale.

 

[Perris]

A long time ago and where I can no longer remember, I posted a link to a piece about the inclusion of some plastic packaging being allowed in animal feed.

this was the Guardian article I originally posted a link to
https://www.theguardian.com/environ...mal-feed-could-harm-human-health-experts-warn

 

[Perris]

For those who still have any stomach for this discussion ), this is a considered and well referenced recent discussion of the pros and cons of the circular economy as it impacts on animal feed production:
https://www.food.gov.uk/research/th...te-and-industry-by-products-and-waste-streams
It specifically addresses the issue of plastics and other risks in several places. And it is part of a much larger document, for the very, very interested.