Choosing the correct food

[NatJ]

my run is pretty large, 5 square feet with lot of green plants growing, which should help.

Probably a typo here. 5 square feet is a space one foot by five feet, or two feet by two and a half feet. Even a single hen should have a bigger run than that.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

White corn is fairly common in animal feeds. I've read that chicken feed made with white corn produces paler yolks than chicken feed made with yellow corn. Corn can also come in red, purple, blue, and other colors, but I've never found anything about what effect those might have on yolk color.

Hmmm. I **KNOW** there's a significant difference between white corn and yellow nutritionally (beta carotene), and believe human selection had a hand in selecting for both from an earlier variety that was less digestible - but in which direction, from what color (blue???) and what the important change was, I can't recall and would need to look up. Combining the ancient milled corn with ash was a key part of the original process to allow us to do anything with it nutritionally. But my memory isn't offering much more to go with than that.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Probably a typo here. 5 square feet is a space one foot by five feet, or two feet by two and a half feet. Even a single hen should have a bigger run than that.

Yeah, I skipped right over that. Agree, obvious error. My run is "pretty big" - like 40' x 50' or 40 x 60' now that I've combined the two runs. Even the grow out pen (which I should be redoing after the goats broke the fence) is like 15 x 45, and its only intended for a dozen immature birds a at a time. (its shrinking, I don't have enough metal fencing to include all of the currently contained space. I think 15 x 30-ish will be the new size.

 

[Rodrad]

White corn is fairly common in animal feeds. I've read that chicken feed made with white corn produces paler yolks than chicken feed made with yellow corn. Corn can also come in red, purple, blue, and other colors, but I've never found anything about what effect those might have on yolk color.

I've also read that alfalfa (green) will also make nice yellow yolks.

So I would guess that pale-colored foods (white corn, wheat, oats, etc) might cause the egg yolks to be pale too. But for foods that do have color (yellow corn, green alfalfa, etc) I would try to find information on how that ingredient affects egg color, or else experiment to see.

Thank for great info. Btw it looks like IPad posted yolk as yoke, well I am glad it is not posted as a joke.

 

[Rodrad]

Great reply! Makes a lot sense. Thank you.

Well, just came to my mind. Would possibly mostly white content of wheat reduce the egg yoke color (since yellow corn, normally has a lot of yellow color)?!

In the meantime I found that yellow corn in the feed does help yoke to have more yellow/orange color because the corn has large amount of carotene.

I found this article which discusses other food which can be fed to chickens to get more yellow color of yoke:https://www.agriculture.com/family/living-the-country-life/getting-chickens-in-the-fall

my run is pretty large, 5 square feet with lot of green plants growing, which should help.

I understand that the only nutritional advantage of darker yellow/orange color of yoke is that it has more carotene and thus vitamin A.

potentiall I can decide to go with 25% K122, 25% corn and 50% wheat.

Sorry about question on yoke instead of yolk but it wasn’t joke!

 

[Rodrad]

Probably a typo here. 5 square feet is a space one foot by five feet, or two feet by two and a half feet. Even a single hen should have a bigger run than that.

Wow, I can’t blame that on IPad. My run 2500 square feet!

 

[Rodrad]

Yeah, I skipped right over that. Agree, obvious error. My run is "pretty big" - like 40' x 50' or 40 x 60' now that I've combined the two runs. Even the grow out pen (which I should be redoing after the goats broke the fence) is like 15 x 45, and its only intended for a dozen immature birds a at a time. (its shrinking, I don't have enough metal fencing to include all of the currently contained space. I think 15 x 30-ish will be the new size.

Yes, it was typo, it is 50x50 feet. And we have just 9 pullets and a rooster.

 

[Rodrad]

I found this interesting blip on internet, considering feed ingredients to get more yellow/orange color of yolk:

”Farmers have added marigolds to chicken feed for about 60 years now. Marigolds contain a chemical called carotenoids which gives the petals a bright orange color. When a chicken eats the marigold petals the yolks of their eggs become orange colored too.”

BTW, my wife has A LOT of marigolds. I wonder if I can dry some of the leaves, possibly make a very small chunks in a blender and add a small amount in my K122 supplement or mix it with the crushed egg shell/oyster shells.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

I found this interesting blip on internet, considering feed ingredients to get more yellow/orange color of yolk:

”Farmers have added marigolds to chicken feed for about 60 years now. Marigolds contain a chemical called carotenoids which gives the petals a bright orange color. When a chicken eats the marigold petals the yolks of their eggs become orange colored too.”

BTW, my wife has A LOT of marigolds. I wonder if I can Gary some of the leaves, possibly make a very small chunks in a blender and add a small amount in my K122 supplement or mix it with the crushed egg shell/oyster shells.

You can. Its a common addition to many feeds, particularly those going for the Non-GMO and certified Organic labels. Or you could just build a few sprouting trays, and plant some marigolds in them. They are easy to grow, reseed well, and are reasonably hearty as long as the screen on the tray keeps the chickens from destroying the soil they are planted in.

 

[Rodrad]

Have a good news, just talked to Mr. Corey Johnson, the nutritionist at Kalmbach. He told me that 122p supplement has TRP! He has to look it up (or do a test) and he will report that info in a few days.

when I asked why they don’t put that info (regardless that is not required) in their spec sheet he told me it is because of the competition with other feed makers (don’t want to divulge more than the bare minimum).

BTW, he has Ph.D in poultry science.

He of course agreed that hard wheat had much better nutritional value than corn. I didn’t quite catch, there is some ingredients in wheat which can be somewhat detrimental and a specially for younger chickens and not so much in layers, based on some findings in Europe (they have much more wheat than corn and it is used as the main ingredient for poultry feed). Will inquire about that next time I talk to him.

It looks because of that and because the corn is cheaper in US they recommend mixing 122p with various percentage of corn.