Secrets to Making Your Chickens' Egg Yolks Darker

When it comes to yolks, the general consensus (in America, at least) is the darker, the better.

So how can you get your backyard chickens to lay those coveted orange-yolked eggs — naturally?

How to get dark orange yolks from your chickens:

Let your chickens free-range.

01.

Pastures (or backyards) full of rich grasses, ground covers, and cover crops are a wonderland for your flock, giving them plenty of opportunity for forage and exercise.

Feed your chickens lots of leafy greens.

02.

The darker the green the better, so I often fix them a feast of edible amaranth, kale, mustard greens, broccoli leaves, or whatever I happen to have growing in my garden.

Let the chickens weed the garden for you.

03.

They love to forage for dandelions, mallow, clover, oxalis, chickweed, purslane, and other plants that sometimes grow where they shouldn’t.

Enlist your chickens in yard clean-up.

04.

Not only will they take care of the pests on your spent plants, they’ll eat whatever’s left on the stems, including flowers and seeds.

Let your chickens turn the compost pile.

05.

The chickens will eat what they want, shred up your scraps for quicker composting, and keep themselves busy and entertained on days they can’t free-range.

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