Lederhosen and Bavarian Chickens

I have always thought that Lederhosen were dress up costumes and not out-fits to be worn on serious occasions. It is easy to imagine how one could have this perspective; however as we learned this week, this is far from true. 

Lederhosen are worn by Bavarians to celebrate traditional holidays, christenings and major events. They are worn with a highly detailed linen or cotton shirt; usually a hat, long woolly socks and often a knitted jacket or vest. The lederhosen are usually made from buck-skin, but wild boar suede and goat skins are all used.  Who knew?

For some people, in particular in rural Bavarian villages it is an outfit that one wears to church every Sunday.

Each village has its own “coat of arms” with features that demonstrate the region. These “coats of arms” are embroidered onto the chest-strap between the braces.

Yesterday afternoon we pulled into the carpark of a small Bavarian Gasthaus (village pub). Halfway through our first 0.5L glass of beer, 12-14 men with beer steins in hand arrived on the back of a cart pulled by horses. The men ranged in age from early 30s to mid 40s, all dressed in lederhosen. They were from the next village. As is customary they were celebrating Christi Himmelfarhrt which literally means Christ Ascension but is celebrated as Father’s day. It is a day that the men get together, dress in traditional clothes and travel from village to village socializing and drinking.  

As more steins of beer were consumed we gained more confidence and our best year 10 German was bought into action. “Ja naturich, aber hat es ein bad?” we asked. Which means “Yes naturally but does it have a bath?” Our lederhosen clad friends were not content with this and made it their objective to complete our German vocabulary by teaching us to say “Die eichhörnchen schwanz” which we later learned to mean “The Squirrels tail” a very useful phrase.  

The more we drank the more we understood and the more they drank the more we all understood. By the end of the night we had become accepted as Australian - Bavarians.

We learned that our Bavarian friends were farmers, metal workers and police, all very welcoming and keen to talk about their lives and understand ours. One in particular named Mani was a free range egg farmer. After a number of beers, Tanya asked Mani if we could visit his farm, “Of course” he said and drew us a mud map of how to get to his house.

Having camped the night in the pub carpark we set off on foot with the mud map in hand only to end up in the next village and miles away from where we later learned his farm to be. Too much alcohol had made Mani draw the map backwards. Once we found his farm which was only 500 meters from the pub, Mani provided us with coffee, introduced us to his 3 year old daughter Veronica and gave us a tour of his farm.

Mani’s farm consisted of around 10 acres with two relocatable chicken houses each housing 150 chickens. These houses are moved once a week to give the chickens’ fresh pasture to feed on. The houses are self-contained with all the chickens water, feed, roosting and laying requirements on board.  Each hen house provides 120 eggs per day.

Mani also had a small flock of German milking sheep to provide for his own household which he told us he only ever milks dressed in lederhosen but that just maybe a squirrels tale.