Yellow yolk...HELP!

[Howard E]

I've been giving my girls carrot greens and fall/winter veggies like leftover kale, broccoli leaves. Anything I yank from the garden that's edible, I'll let them strip off the leaves first. My feed store also sells dried kelp meal which supposedly has the same effect... I haven't needed it so haven't tried it.

As others have noted the appeal of an orangey yolk is purely aesthetic. I love the look of it as well. I'm thinking for spring, of planting carrots all around the run perimeter, so the girls can nibble off some of the greens, though the local rabbits would probably put a stop to that real fast.

Mine had access to carrots this summer and would not touch em. Spinach and lettuce, that was a different story. Same with diakon radishes. They stripped those bare.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Mine loooove carrot greens. I eat them too, so it's hard keeping them away from the greens I'm picking for myself, when they're all jumping up and down and stripping the stems as I try to escape.

 

[mel080908]

Wow thank you so much everyone who took the time to give me some advice! I appreciate all the advice and definitely feel more at ease with the color of their yolk!

 

[mel080908]

mel080908-I'm curious about the peas. They have so much nutrition packed into them but my girls WILL NOT eat them, whether yellow or green. They are dirt cheap so I kept hoping they'd catch on, but nada, so I stopped buying them. I like the idea of whole grain food so I have that available to mine all the time (BOSS, red wheat berries, millet, and oat groats) but they have commercial feed available all the time as well in their coop. I only have two chickens so feeding this way doesn't cost much and the grains are cheap at my local co-op. Mine also free range during the day, with open access to their coop, and are up at night. Mine are 6 months old, so I only have one layer right now. She laid a brown egg, strong shell, over the weekend (hallelujah) and the yolk was a medium orange. I thought it was interesting considering her diet. They get table scraps occasionally...and last night, for example, they got cooked carrots and sweet potatoes (no, I have no idea why I made a monochromatic meal).

Yeah I was hoping my chickens would eat the peas as well, but they picked them out every single time! I tried. I got this recipe off of a blogger I found on Pinterest and I'm glad I switched due to the feedback I received today. It sounds like it didn't have enough of the nutrients needed for my hens!