Super light yolks!

[tmf321]

Really?? That's interesting! I thought scraps were fine, especially because we eat no processed foods so it is fruits and veggies. Is it because they aren't eating enough pellets with filling up on the craps?

Yes, a good quality feed contains all the nutrition they need and in the correct proportions. Treats and table scraps, even high quality nutritious ones, can throw off the percentage of things like protein, calcium, phosphorus, etc if feed in large quantities. Rule of thumb is to make treats equate to less than 10% of their diet.

Anytime you are having health or egg quality issues always go back to basics with their diet.

 

[tmf321]

Make sure your feed isn't very old and that they are eating primarily that. Has anything changed in their environment or diet since the pale yolks started? Even a change in feed brand? A lot of commercial feeds add things like marigold to darken the yolk so could affect the color you are seeing if you've made a recent switch.

 

[ShannonR]

What brand of feed are you using? Some make for lighter yolks than others. Also how old are the hens? I've personally noticed that older hens tend to lay eggs with lighter yolks. Is this a thing with others too, I wonder, or just me?

 

[PioneerChicks]

The official rule is to feed your chickens less then 10 percent treats, as mentioned above, but I don't count all kitchen scraps as treats. Like leftover corn can be a meal for them, and the rule for humans is you can never eat too many greens, so why limit how much lettuce your chickens eat? If you think about it, birds and other animals don't need to eat processed pellets in the wild, there are other, healthier ways for them to get their vitamins.

I give my chickens plenty of kitchen scraps, access to the compost pile, a mix of fermented seeds along with a bit of fermented processed pellets, a mix of oyster shells and our own crushed and dried eggshells, and if all goes well I'll be giving them black soldier fly larvae soon. And I plan on growing a lot of lettuce specifically for them this year.

I'm not saying commercial processed pellets are bad, I just think that chickens need a bit more fresh nutrition. Keep feeding them kitchen scraps, and maybe you could even try fermenting your pellets, seeds or no seeds! (You can search BYC or just the internet for more info on fermenting)

 

[Lauravonsmurf]

Yolk color depends almost entirely on pigments in the food chickens eat.

Plenty of leafy greens and yellow-orange foods... carrots, pumpkin, corn, calendula flowers, dandelion flowers, marigold flowers (fresh or dried)... stuff like that.

Feed companies actually add pigments to the low color feed to create the yellow we see in the store eggs. Even organic companies have ingredients for this purpose.... example marigold petals.

Increase the food rainbow in their diet and it should self correct. The more my birds free range generally the better the egg color and general quality of egg I get. However free ranging is not always possible here too...so that’s when adding to their diet really helps. I really believe good nutrition and exercise = healthy birds and good eggs. The problem we all have is commercial feeds are formulated to do very specific things that may not align with our goals... feeds are often formulated to be cheapest way to feed, to just supply minimal average nutrition needed to produce eggs by hens that will be culled instead of being allowed to produce less and grow old... commercial breeding hens are fed a different feed than laying pellets to improve fertility rates of eggs... so if you want brighter darker eggs look at diet and also what are your goals Vs industry standard.

 

[LaFleche]

In addition to the aforementioned food related causes there are some other reasons too:

• capillaria infestation (worms)
• IB infectious bronchitis
• congestion of the gizzard caused by lack of grit while feeding long grass etc.