Should I buy eggs or wait it out?

Carotinoids in leafy greens and yellow foods (pumpkins, corn) make the yolks more orange. This is also used by the EE types to make the shells blue. Different chickens eat more or less of these foods, metabolize them differently, and require different amounts. My Ameraucanas crave all types of greens and will bypass bread and scratch for kale or cabbage. My white Leghorn has the palest yolks. As a pullet, her legs were yellow, but now at 2 yrs, they are very pale, almost white. The pigment is pulled out of their legs and skin to go into the eggs. She should have built up the yellow in her legs over the winter break, but there wasn't much grass for them and I switched to a corn free food. Her legs are a pale yellow. An experienced person can tell how long a pullet has been laying by the color of her legs. Everyone else has very orange yolks.

Some sneaky egg farmers add in marigold petals to make the yolks more orange. It's kind of cheating, rather than giving them a good diet. Don't know the nutritional value of marigolds.
 
On his way!!!

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

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yippiechickie.gif
 

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