HELP PLEASE! SCIENCE PROJECT!

[SparkyChicken]

Hi! I am doing a science project for my school and my testable question is "how does the diet of a chicken affect the color of the yolk"
and I was wondering if anyone knows about how long it takes a chicken to get a type of food, like chicken feed, kale or other veggies out of their system? We let our chickens free-range usually but for this expirement we were going to coop them up and feed them one specific food so if anyone knows how long it takes different foods to get out of their system and also if anyone knows how long it takes for the food to change the color of the yolk? Thanks!

 

[centrarchid]

Assume two weeks if hens in lay. Longer if not. Pigments of interest can be stored as fat soluble.

Also consider another variable in the form of added fat.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

Hi! I am doing a science project for my school and my testable question is "how does the diet of a chicken affect the color of the yolk"
and I was wondering if anyone knows about how long it takes a chicken to get a type of food, like chicken feed, kale or other veggies out of their system? We let our chickens free-range usually but for this expirement we were going to coop them up and feed them one specific food so if anyone knows how long it takes different foods to get out of their system and also if anyone knows how long it takes for the food to change the color of the yolk? Thanks!

I don't know if this will help you but the yoke also changes the color of the hen. I have never seen any information on how quickly egg color is changed by diet.

http://msucares.com/poultry/management/culling.html


Oh,

Some chicken feeds contain Marigold flowers because these flowers make egg yokes dark yellow. This often fools the egg consumer into believing that the eggs they buy are rooting-tooting free range eggs when nothing could be further from the truth.

I hope some of this helps you.

 

[JacobMaxwell]

If this helps, I know that the chemicals that effect yolk color are called carotenes. Usually a free range hen will have more carotenes in her diet from plants and such. This is why free range eggs usually have a deeper yellow yolk.