Unpleasant taste to eggs

[duckduckturkey]

Okay,

Again, I'm long term chicky sitting. When we started chicky sitting and tasting the eggs, we found that some of them were good, but most of them tasted ucky. We stopped eating them. We cleared out all the trash, cleaned the pens, changed the chickens diet and the birds themselves look amazingly better. Their feathers have filled in, fluffed up and are shiny! It's been close to three weeks, so, I thought we'd try the eggs again. Same thing. Some taste okay, some taste nasty.

I feed them as much as I can from the garden and they gobble it up. I'm wondering if there is still something either in their diet or missing from their diet that would explain the disappointing taste.

I give them lettuce, peas, kale, greens, strawberries, cooked oatmeal, a variety of grains such as wheat berries, and flax in small quantities, and I occasionally give them olive oil soaked bread. I also give the feed the neighbors left until it ran out, and now they get cracked corn until I can get to the feed store to get the layer pellets. Oh, and I boil and feed them back their eggs. Such I stop doing that?

Advice appreciated!

 

[emys]

Some of them must be eating something weird that the others don't. Stink bugs?? Or some weird plant??

 

[yinepu]

try laying off on the kale and peas for a bit and see if that helps... sometimes strong flavored foods will carry over an "off taste" to the eggs depending on the hen that eats them

 

[Erica]

Flax seeds can cause a fishy taste. Ordinarily this only happens if they're eating more than about 4% flax, but some birds may be better at sending omega-3 into eggs... I would cut out the flax and see if the egg flavour improves.

best of luck
Erica

 

[paperdragonfarm]

Beat me to it. I was going to say the flax or the kale. We had our yolks turn purple once because of a huge drop of peppers/seeds/plants. (We'd been canning) and they tasted "greener" if that makes any sense? Any way, good luck and keep us posted!

 

[Jeffross1968]

Personally I'd lay off ALL treats, and just let the forage and eat the layer feed for a week or so and then try again. If everything is ok, then maybe start reintroducing something one per week and see if the taste changes again. Treats and scraps are loved by all, but they aren't necessary. They'll survive just fine while you figure this out.