I think I have a theory on pale eggs it goes like this: ---------------(skip to after the other line to skip the science babble)------------------ (first in simi-science babble, real science babble is odd, you guess against what you are testing, it looks backwards but it isn't) Null hypothesis: Chickens who lay an average of one egg in 24 hours are (not) effected by barometric pressure change from when they start the process of adding the yolk to laying the egg. Hypotheisis 1: Chickens who lay an average of one egg in 24 hours will be effected by a barometric pressure change from when they start the process of adding the yolk to laying the egg. muw- 1- an change in barometric pressure will be considered any change in 24 hours of (xxx) millibars (equiv of hectopascals-note weather stations measure in inches of mercury) or greater. muw- 2- the observable effect on the egg will be yolk color muw- 3- another proposed effect is laying behavior changes, this will not be tested at this time. Method: AOTBE (all other things being equal, example pecking order remains the same, who is broody or not remains the same, food type and amount remains the same) Over a one month period egg yolk colors the day of lay are compared and from 12:01am-12:00am is considered 24 hours to record barometric pressure changes. -------------(science babble off)--------------------- This boils down to the following when the weather changes rapidly, good to bad or bad to good- my yolks are pale- is there a correlation? So anyone want to help check up on this for me? 1) eggs collected must be opened that day make a note of refrigeration or no refrigeration- please keep this the same, if you never refrigerate or always refrigerate continue like that each egg. 2) use just eggs from one layer per test (test as many hens as you want tho-) 3) record the relative egg color on a 1-10 scale, 1 being 'white yolk' 10 being 'red' yolk- commercial eggs as a control have a value of 3 4) record if the weather changed in the previous 24 hours, from one minute after midnight till midnight as 24 hours as control, if you pick a different 24 hours please make a note. 5) please make a note if the weather was bad to good, or good to bad- as that might make the difference if enough data is collected. 5b) please make a note of anything else that happened, introduced new birds, had a preditor loss, fed really late ect... this allows me to account for "error". 6) pictures of the weather, hens, eggs that are in this test are ALL welcome! --- Questions about #2 above Hen A lays egg A and has color #A Hen B lays egg B and has color #B Hen C... this is so that chickens that always lay dark eggs can be compared to chickens that don't- in the end the numbers reported will be averaged for each hen then the change from average will tell if that hen was effected by weather. So if your flock lays 7-9 and suddenly 5 and it was terrible weather weather might have effected them.
Wow. If someone wanted to do this as an experiment for a science fair or something, a first place ribbon is almost guaranteed. Based on my own prior research, egg yolks are affected by an individual bird's diet, but the concept of egg yolk changing due to fluctuations in barometric pressure is interesting and probably not too far-fetched an idea. If you actually plan on performing this experiment, please keep us updated on what you find. When I have time, I might try this as well.
Want me to write up the whole thing? (see sig) not that big a deal, but w/o me doing the whole write up someone else can use the idea too. We know diet effects yolk color already, but I'll be feeding the same thing for months and suddenly get a batch of pale eggs, thinking back the only correlation I can find is weather- I have ruled out most all other possibilities. If people are checking more then one hen each then all of the hens should be somewhat effected at the same time... either that days egg or the next egg will be pale... Oh I forgot no egg = a zero 0 on the chart, for those skip days. And a double yolk would have the two numbers 5/6 or 7/4 please...
