⠀ Wanting more orange color yolks!

[DrMikelleRoeder]

There are many natural pigments other than just marigold which can color yolks. Marigold imparts a yellow color; other pigments that contribute red coloring will help to make the yokes more orange. As many of you have discovered, the time of year and the types of plants your free-ranging birds forage on can greatly impact the color of the yolks. There is also individual variation in how much pigment any given bird will transfer to the yolk of her eggs, so you sometimes may see differences in yolk color, even among bords being fed the same feed. Parasites and disease can impact absorption of pigments, just as they can absorption of nutrients. Interestingly enough, in Europe people favor pale yolks.

 

[ChickenJerk]

So Dr. What do you recomend about improving the nutrional value of Purina feeds by fermenting them?

 

[triplepurpose]

Marigolds may make the yolks look yellower, but it does nothing to improve nutritional value. It's like adding molasses to your white bread dough to make it look like darker whole wheat without the benefits. The yolks of eggs from chickens fed a nutritious diet are naturally deeper in color--specifically the pigmentation comes from beta carotene contained in fresh plants and concentrating in the animals that eat them (including the bugs that the chickens est). This makes rich yolk color a useful proxy for estimating high nutrient content (especially vitamins A, D, E ). The same principles explain why the cream of the milk from cows on rich pasture is more golden. But it's important to note that it's the high vitamin A content that makes the egg bright orange, not the other way around, because there seems to be done confusion on this! Also, one major flaw with commercial feed mixes is that they supply no fresh greens or insects that ate fresh greens, so they are low in the associated nutrients--commercial feeds are great in other ways, don't get me wrong, and very convenient, but they do lack this important element. We follow a "fresh greens daily" rule, which helps keep yolks more nutritious (access to quality forage, or supplying garden and other greens--and the bugs that ate these things themselves). Fermenting feed also helps (making nutrition already in the feed more available and creating new nutrients). One goal of good farming, including backyard eggs, is not just to produce as much food as possible from a system, but to concentrate and accumulate nutrients into useful (and delicious) forms humans can benefit from--that is, to produce as much NUTRITION as possible.