The Feed and Yolk Experiment: Chicken feed and dark orange yolk color

[The Golden Egg5]

Same here about the land to forage the on. We have one acre of grassy/field land and 5 acres of heavily dense forest land. They cover all 6 acres and even go onto my neighbors land. I get rich eggs when I am able to freerange them. It mostly depends on the richness of the land they forage on and the amount of "critters" they can find on it.

 

[NewBreeder]

I had a couple of friends from France over the house one day

So I treated them to NE Lobsters as a treat

I was getting ready to compost the shells when they told don't do that crush them and add it to their feed for two reasons the calcium and the coloring

Almost instantly the next couple days the eggs were almost blood red, never saw anything like that and my birds are free range birds

I've often thought about creating a feed to color the egg yolks

One day watching some nature/cooking program I ran across a plant breeder for a famous chef who was raising red peppers just for this reason

The peppers he was raising were selected for the increased red color to be fed to the chickens of this chef and it worked for them

I would suspect maybe paprika or any dried red peppers may pass the enhanced coloring onto the eggs, maybe one day I'll try this to see if it works

Food for thought

 

[centrarchid]

My chickens will consume crayfish left overs. Consumption of terrestrial isopods and amphipods can also provide the pigments.

 

[Meyrlbird]

I'm sure I'll get banned because this site gets funding from purina, but how are we to believe this isn't an advertising plug? Where's the proof.

 

[aart]

I'm sure I'll get banned because this site gets funding from purina, but how are we to believe this isn't an advertising plug? Where's the proof.

If you had read the whole thread, you would not think that

 

[ShrekDawg]

If you had read the whole thread, you would not think that

Yeah i agree. Just seems like someone sharing their experiences to me and with the fact that they came back and updated and how long lived the thread has been. If it was a promotion I don't think they would have bothered to come back or talk to us and the thread would have died off sooner

 

[NorthTexasWink]

@Meyrlbird Skepticism is healthy. But I haven't seen any draconian censorship or ban hammers in the (admittedly short) time I've been here.

 

[GC-Raptor]

I've just gone to both Purina Layena and Nutrena Naturewise websites, and they both add marigold to their layers feed. Purina adds marigold extract for rich yellow yolks, producing deep yellow egg yolks. Nutrena adds marigold meal for golden yolks. These are their words. So it's not just Purina that adds marigold, but they may put more emphasis on it in their advertising.
I do not look for that in the feed I buy. I look for added Prebiotics and Probiotics , Protein % and vitamins and minerals, and most importantly how fresh it is. I use both brands and buy the freshest one. GC

 

[Animal67]

In the first week or two of mar.2017 I bought 10 chicks (all hens) from a local Rural king store, and only 4 months later (today) one hen is laying a very small egg, they'll get bigger with time, after my 3yo daughter and I calmed down from finding this small egg I took plenty of pics of it and sent them to everyone I know, hehehehe. I decided to cook the egg and let my little girl eat it, So dad cooked it up and it was soooo dark orange, I was very pleased, it brought back memories of my chickens I had years ago. All I've ever done to obtain this dark orange colored yolk is a mixture of free range, quality feed (whole/cracked corn, scratch grains etc. I do use pureina layena oyster strong feed. But one thing I have done with all chickens I've ever had was feed lots of berries.. I'll pick huge freezer bags full of raspberries,blackberries, and I have blueberry bushes that yield very generously. I have so much I can feed them all winter. There's nothing healthier than berries. It's worth a try.

 

[Animal67]

When I found the 1st egg today it took awhile to calm down from finding it as I've been really wanting eggs, we cooked it up and yolk was dark orange and with the berries and good feed and plenty of water, these eggs will also be nutritious as well as having dark yolks. I've always thought nature held our answers through watching wild animals. In this case birds, what do they eat? Why? A neighbors cherry tree produces a lot of cherries each year and each year robins pick it dry in no time. They can't get enough. They are healthy birds that migrate and know survival. Just sayin, its worth a try. Good luck to all.