FUNDAMENTALS OF FEEDING 213 



give a perceptible flavor to the eggs. Only when the hens 

 have been starved on green food or animal food, and then 

 given all they will eat of either for a few days, will any 

 flavor from onions or animal food be noticed in the egg. 

 But this shows that the hen puts into the egg what she finds 

 in the food, even the flavor of the foods. It is therefore 

 important that good wholesome food be fed at all times. 



Feeding Color Into the Egg. It is possible for the skill- 

 ful feeder to flavor the eggs; it sometimes happens from 

 unskillful feeding, as indicated above. It is possible also 

 to "paint" them. The variation in the shade of yellow in 

 the yolk is due to a difference in the food. The coloring of 

 the egg shell is beyond the feeder's art, but food affects the 

 color of the yolk as we have demonstrated. A pen of fowls 

 fed dried alfalfa leaves produced eggs of good yolk color. 

 A similar pen fed sugar beets instead of alfalfa leaves laid 

 eggs very pale in color. In an experiment at the Oregon 

 Station kale " painted " the yolks a good color of yellow. 

 Experiments at other stations have shown that the feeding 

 of yellow corn will color the yolk. (West Virginia Bulletin 

 88. ) When eggs are pale in the yolk it is a sure indication 

 that the hens are not getting green food enough. Clover, 

 vetch, rape, grass, or other green food, and doubtless cer- 

 tain grain foods, will color the yolk. A yolk too highly col- 

 ored is not desirable, and it is possible for the hens to eat so 

 much of certain foods as to color it too highly. Where the 

 ration is right this should not occur. Food, therefore, af- 

 fects the quality of the eggs. 



It has been further demonstrated that it is possible to 

 color both the yolk and the white of the egg by the feeding 

 of certain aniline dyes. Khodamine Red dye fed at the rate 

 of 100 grams daily will, in a few days, color the white a 

 pink color, while Soudan III dye will in about two weeks of 

 feeding color the yolk a dark red. An egg laid two days 



