The yolks are a very pale yellow ( I'm new at this so please bear with my questions) I am wondering if this is common for beginning layers. They are getting yellow corn with their food. Should I alternate days of regular food one day and the next nothing but corn? I am giving them a mixture of both every day.
corn is like candy for chickens. they LOVE it, but it's not very healthy for them. and too much can make them fat (eventually) and fat hens arnt good layers. i usually just give out about 4 - 5 good handfuls of scratch (a corn/wheat mixture) a day in the cold months.....but during the hot months i just throw out BOSS (black oil sunflower seed) cuz corn raises the body temperature and i figure that's not good in the summer. anyway, i also give my girls other snacks (kitchen scraps like fruits and veggies, cheese and bread given sparingly, plain yogurt mixed with peanut butter - good source of protein and calcium) and they also free range and find lots of bugs, eat grass etc. the age of the chicken doesnt have anything to do with the yolk color (at least to my knowledge). my girls first egg had a VERY orange yolk. my other girls have orange yolks too, but this girl has an even oranger yolk than the others....maybe she's a better forager. if your girls can't free range, try to give kitchen scraps and grass clippings for them. but i would certainly cut back on the corn. they don't need it. oh, and the BOSS helps their egg laying too cuz of the oils.
I am new at this as well. When I first got my hens their first eggs were yellowish yolks, but since they have been out free ranging they have turned a darker orange. I am not sure about the corn. I have heard lots of bad things...humans can't digest it...and a chicken farmer friend of mine refused to give his chickens corn...I should ask him in more detail why?
Fresh Fresh Fresh! We know it is time to start supplementing with alfalfa and other things when the grass starts to die for winter, so does the vibrant colour in the egg yolks.
I agree, the dark yellow yolks come from a variety of foods (that way they get the fully array of nutrients) and fresh greens and veggies! It doesn't even have to be field greens necessarily. Mine are backyard birds, and benefit from cropping my grass, murdering errant dandelions, and shredding my (used to be) beautiful hostas.
Yes indeed, corn is a candy for chickens. Mine get a handful a day. Right now they mostly free range though, and the yolks of my eggs are a bright sunny orange! Just beautiful! I would mainly provide them with the layer feed, and allow them to free range if you can. A little "corn treat" is OK, but not too much. It's a good bribe food....to get them into their chicken run/coop in the evening if you need them to come in early. (They hear me shake the corn in the scooper, and they just come running!) In the winter time, scratch grains or corn is a nice bedtime treat, because it causes a chicken's body temps to raise while they are digesting it. Just a little bit of chicken info for ya!
fresh greens will give you nice orange yolks, as others have said corn is really just a treat. When my girls can't free range I like to give them spinach and lettuce, and sometimes broccoli. But they really prefer to free range, and it makes such a difference in yolk color!
Thanks everyone for all the info. I will give them more greens, we have lots of that! They love banana leaves and since we live in the tropics we do have a lot of those.
