doctorscoctotor dunghead

[reshroomED]

Don't know what sort of chooks they've got, or what sort of tucker they get free-range there, but the middle pic looks a lot closer to a free-range egg to me.

 

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It is also from a hen fed artificial colours.

 

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I've been eating free-range eggs since I was a baby and the yolks I'm used to are at least that deep a colour. What do you other chook-owners reckon?

As a side-note, we cleaned a large pantry out a few years back and ended up with a heap of dried spices in jars that were way too old. So they all got scraped out and thrown in with the food scraps. Amongst this was about .5kg of garlic powder that had gone hard and been chipped out in smalll pieces. Later that day we were watching the chooks pick at the scraps and waiting for them to hit the garlic or chile, but they just kept pecking and we lost interest.

Took a day or two but for the next week we got these grouse spicy garlic flavoured eggs.

ed

[Darklight]

reshroomED:

What do you other chook-owners reckon?

As a former chook owner now in recovery, and acquaintence of someone who ran an excellent free range egg business for a few years, I thought the colour of free range organic egg yolks depended on what they were fed.

As I understand it the more green leafy food, the darker the yolk, though there were other things that could affect the colour also

[mescalito]

Mmmmm chilli and garlic eggs :cool: maybe add some parsley next time :D

I'd have to agree that the middle one is closer to the colour of the good ones I get and they're fed scraps and forage insects and grasses.Obviously there's a lot that makes it through to the final product and additives are a shite thing to feed chooks.

[Tryptameanie]

My mum's chooks are fed wheat, corn, kitchen and garden scraps, (esp. lots of old and insect-eaten brassica leaves), and forage for insects, worms etc. The colour of the eggs vary from 10 to 15 (average 13?) on the above scale, definitely changing in response to the amount of fresh food they are getting at the time.

Regarding the chili, the reason the chooks showed no reaction is because the "heat" of chilis is not actually due to a physical "burning" of the mouth, but to a pharmacological interaction of capsaicin with the mammalian pain receptor. This is presumably why humans can become extremely tolerant to chilis (receptor downregulation?). Birds have a different version of the receptor and are completely unaffected. This benefits the plant as it prevents mammals (with grinding teeth and elaborate digestive systems) from comsuming and destroying the seeds, while not discouraging the birds that are the plants natural seed dipersers. I've heard it claimed that chili powder is sometimes added to grain intended for birds to prevent rats from eating it. Funnily enough, this could also produce more orange eggs as chilis are a good source of caretenoids (hence their colour).

[mescalito]

So could you feed chooks L-tryptophan or St.Johns Wort and end up with an anti-depressant egg?

[Tryptameanie]

Tryptophan in excess of the quantities needed for protein/amine synthesis would most likely be metabolized for energy and would not be found in the egg. Other things might make it through, but why further complicate dosing issues already a problem with potentially dangerous plant derived drugs?

Regarding food intolerances, there are many quacks willing to explain any problems a patient is having as resulting from their reaction to wheat and dairy products, dietary amines and salicylates etc, and reccomend a diet consisting of peeled pears and soy flour.

However they are most certainly a real thing. The majority of the world's population lack the enzyme to metabolize and hence absorb lactose, resulting in fluid retention in the intestines, cramps and diaorhea from consumptiom of milk. In SE Asian populations the incidence is about 90% (try looking for milk in Chinatown!). It is only herder types that have evolved to retain the enzyme past when it is needed to digest mothers milk (Strong, Aryan digestive enzymes! )

[ 28. January 2005, 11:22: Message edited by: Tryptameanie ]