Whenever we give away or sell any of our eggs we get compliments on the yellowness of the yolks. And they are very yellow – almost orange at times.
They make lovely vibrant scrambled eggs and great tasty-looking cakes. They even taste better, and that’s not just father’s pride talking; most shop-bought eggs, even free-ranges ones are watery and tasteless by comparison.
The secret to getting particularly yellow eggs is quite simple, though: never throw away any of your kitchen scraps.
Pretty much anything that could go onto a compost heap can also be given to your chickens, with the exception of raw potato skins and the obvious no-goes like coffee grounds and tea bags. Basically, if it grew in the ground and you’re eating the rest of it yourself, the chickens will go mad for the trimmings.
Chickens don’t have taste-buds, so apart from making them feel full, their only interaction with food is through smell. As such, they’re as happy eating onion tops and skins, olives and garlic as they are mushrooms, tomatoes and carrots.
The more we feed them, the more healthy-looking the yolks, and the less we spend on layers pellets.
Plus, it keeps them entertained. That’s Gerry up above, picking away at the trimmings of a cauliflower. It took the three of them half a day to eat their way through it, all the time clucking and chirping happily each other.
Happy hens make healthy eggs.
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Mother always used to give the house chickens old cabbages or a brussel sprout stalk with bussels left on it (ones that were past using by the humans) and also said it gave them something to talk to each other about.
Dear Blagger et al, You write : “Pretty much anything that could go onto a compost heap can also be given to your chickens, with the exception of raw potato skins and the obvious no-goes like coffee grounds and tea bags.”
Do feel free to make your life complicated but why on Earth would you bother separating “potato skins, coffee-grounds & tea bags ” from your chookens food bucket. Chooks may not be up there in the intelligence stakes with ‘Bush-Blair& Howard’, but they know what they like to eat & eat it. They also know what they don’t like to eat & don’t eat it. My chooks receive 100% of anything that is compostable, even including scraps of paper that are too small for the recycling bin. ( ‘Too small’ ‘cos they blow around in the recycling centre & go to landfill eventually ! ) I bring home vast numbers of boxes per annum from our local ” Dynamic Vegies” shop & every item of fruit & veg. known to us blessed Australians is tossed tp the chooks: all organic at worst or biodynamic at best !! My chooks have NEVER been known to eat onions or garlic incidentally !
I produce- well my 3 dirls & Osama bin Layin’, their hero & protector- produce DOZENS of barrow loads of soil each year. Dozens. But, yes , effort is required: collecting the fruit & veg boxes, hauling it home, chopping up the bulky stuff ( caulies, cabbages, etc. with a spade on the ground) to speed up the composting process,running a loose , temporary, mesh “fence” around the raw materials to allow decomposition to occur without further scratching from the chooks & so on. But what soil. And all in a 3 metre radius semi-circle of a chook yard. Keep it simple guys & then you’ll have more energy for the essential jobs.
I can certainly vouch for this. The more green stuff I give my two hens, the nicer the eggs taste (and look, with lovely sticky yellow yolks).
Especially cabbage – which they love!
Keep up the good blogging.