4 Cooped up hen's yolks are all getting a little paler...what should I feed them?

[Chubbicthe2nd]

They're 6 months old, currently cooped up when they used to free range a month ago because of our rooster problem (we currently have a free ranging bachelor flock, at some point we will harvest some of them and get more hens before we free-range them all together again).

Anyway, their yolks used to be deep orange, and are now yellow. Not as pale as the poor caged chicken's eggs I get at the store, but in that direction so it's concerning me.

We give them layer feed (Purina or nature wise), free choice calcium (their own washed baked and crushed egg shells), and tons of table scraps. Recently my toddlers have become neater eaters, so there's a lot less table scraps.

I was wondering if that was related to the pale yolks. Is this a mineral issue, protein issue, or greens?

 

[Ridgerunner]

Those dark yellow or orange yolks sure look like they should be healthier, don't they. But they are not. The nutritional content of the yolks are the same no matter what shade of yellow they are.

The darker colors comes from dyes that they eat. There is no nutrition in those dyes. They can get those dyes from some of the things they eat. Some dark green plants contain enough dye to affect yolk color. Some Layer feed contains dried marigold petals. Marigold petals contain those dyes. They do not contribute anything nutritionally but they do help color the egg yolk.

I grow marigolds in my garden. I put some at the end of a few rows just because they are pretty. When I switch from one certain crop to another in a garden row I often put marigold at the break. Say I switch from kale to chard. A flower plant goes at the break. When I'm cleaning up my garden in the fall I put a marigold plant in the run for the chickens to snack on. A new plant every few days. Those egg yolks get really dark.

 

[Chubbicthe2nd]

It makes sense that some plant dyes with no added nutritional value will up the color, but still....does it necessarily mean that marigold petals aside, darker yolks might indicate more nutrition when they're not dyed?

For example, someone with super pale cheeks is obviously anemic. It's true that some people with rosy cheeks are just wearing blush and are still anemic. But it doesn't mean that having rosy cheeks doesn't mean anything, since people who aren't using blush and have rosy cheeks are not anemic.

Has anyone done scientific test to see if the nutritional value is actually the same when the yolks are pale or dark? I just keep thinking from an evolutionary perspective, if we find darker yolks innately more appealing to eat, there might typically be more nutrition in it (even if we get tricked by the dye in marigold petals!).

 

[Chubbicthe2nd]

(on that note, I used to think it was silly that I always wanted to buy the purple cabbage instead of the white & green cabbage when they tasted almost the same at the grocery store.

Then I found out that the purple cabbage had way more Quercetin in it and other phytonutrients that help your body make essential minerals like zinc more bioavailable.... Which means it could make other food more nutritious by making it more bioavailable.... And if you have higher levels of zinc your body is much better at fighting off coronaviruses. So it wasn't crazy that my little brain ignored my rational talking to and reached for the purple cabbage at the grocery store even though it was 30 more cents a pound.

 

[Ridgerunner]

It makes sense that some plant dyes with no added nutritional value will up the color, but still....does it necessarily mean that marigold petals aside, darker yolks might indicate more nutrition when they're not dyed?

How do you respond to a "might"? A piece of space junk "might" fall out of the sky and hit your house this afternoon. It happened a few years back in Australia so it might happen to you. You "might" have an auto accident the next time you go to the grocery store. That happens though the odds are pretty low on any one trip. The sun "might" shine where you are today. It doesn't always but the odds are pretty good.

If your chickens get some of that dye by eating dark green leafy plants they can get certain vitamins or other nutrients they might not otherwise get from other sources. But the cause is eating the dyes and the effect is darker yolks. Those yolks are going to be darker because of the dyes whether the vitamins are there or not.

There are all kinds of myths on this forum. I'm always reading where someone feeds their chickens DE and the chickens have never had roundworms. That is not proof. When I butcher my chickens I look inside the intestines for roundworms and have never seen one. I do not feed them DE or anything else for worms.

You can believe what you want. If you believe darker yolks are healthier then by all means feed them things with dye that makes the yolks darker. You'll feel better.

 

[Chubbicthe2nd]

How do you respond to a "might"? A piece of space junk "might" fall out of the sky and hit your house this afternoon. It happened a few years back in Australia so it might happen to you. You "might" have an auto accident the next time you go to the grocery store. That happens though the odds are pretty low on any one trip. The sun "might" shine where you are today. It doesn't always but the odds are pretty good.

If your chickens get some of that dye by eating dark green leafy plants they can get certain vitamins or other nutrients they might not otherwise get from other sources. But the cause is eating the dyes and the effect is darker yolks. Those yolks are going to be darker because of the dyes whether the vitamins are there or not.

There are all kinds of myths on this forum. I'm always reading where someone feeds their chickens DE and the chickens have never had roundworms. That is not proof. When I butcher my chickens I look inside the intestines for roundworms and have never seen one. I do not feed them DE or anything else for worms.

You can believe what you want. If you believe darker yolks are healthier then by all means feed them things with dye that makes the yolks darker. You'll feel better.

Sorry, I was trying to logic my way through it but logic is not my strong suit. I do most of my thinking in a pattern matching sort of way, which then has to be translated into logic for other people to understand, but I often don't translate it very well.

I gather I made you frustrated and have been sorted into the "believes in crystals" category, but this is not the case. I know what I mean but it's hard to explain. I'll try to go get some logic tables and sort out what I'm trying to say.

 

[nuthatched]

They need some more greens, romaine, beet tops etc. Avoid kale and spinach

 

[Papaye]

...You could want to read this article :
https://millersbiofarm.com/blog/is-yolk-color-is-no-longer-a-great-indicator-of-the-egg-s-nutrition

(Do take note of the fact yolk color ALSO depends on genetics : indeed, some hens have just lighter or darker coloured yolks than the rest of the flock, even if they eat the exact same food and vegetables than them!)

 

[HollowOfWisps]

I am a huge research lover and darker yolks being more nutritious is a both yes/no gray area. The egg industry knows that consumers see dark yolks and automatically associate them with healthier eggs. This has led to synthetic dying and alternatives to dye the yolks. Those egg yolks are not more nutritious than paler comparisons. However, it has been proven that a chicken on a high quality natural diet the darker eggs are indeed more nutritious because what is darkening the yolk are Carotenoids specifically: B-Caroteine, Lutein and Zeaxanthin. The more carotenoids content the darker the yolk. There is also a lot of research out there that shows how crucial Carotenoids are for our health and prevention of diseases (even Alzheimer’s and cancer). It also should be noted that from what I found it takes a significant amount of foraging to truly increase the nutritional value of the eggs. I am not sure if that amount would be able to be attained with hens that are not allowed to forage adequately for larger quantities of time daily.

“ “Low-quality” diets, based on wheat, produces pale yellow yolk, while the pasture-raised hens feed with “high-quality” diet like fresh grass produce yolk with higher concentration of carotenoids, leading to a darker orange yolk color. The poultry industry has been supplementing the diet of the hens with synthetic carotenoids. However, the increasing public concerns about their use are forcing to replace them with natural carotenoid sources, like plant extracts (Karadas et al., 2006), carrots (Hammershoj et al., 2010), mixture diet of vegetable oils, yeast (Dufossé, 2018), or microalgae (Frederiksson et al., 2006). Chlorella spp. have been proven to modify the color of the egg yolk of Hisex Brown laying hens with supplementation of 10 and 20 g/kg for 8 weeks of experiment compared with the control (Kotrbacek et al., 2013). The main carotenoids that accumulate on the yolk are lutein, zeaxanthin, and β-carotene increasing the nutritional value of the egg.”

“In summary, a forage material intake of more than ~50 g/hen/day of either grass, grass-clover, kale, alfalfa or chicory is estimated necessary (Table 3) for a significant effect on the egg qualities, i.e. increasing the PUFA content, the carotenoid content and resulting in darker, more reddish and yellowish egg yolk colour.” (note PUFA content is polyunsaturated fatty acids).
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/egg-yolk-color

 

[Altairsky]

I disagree. All natural foods have nutritional value. It makes no sense to say carrots help with skin color but have no nutritional value. All vegetables and fruits have important nutrients. They color the egg yolk, but they also have essential nutrients that are important to the chickens health.