Hem lay what they eat?
Everyone has heard at one
tune or another about the
cow that was fed chocolate
bars to give chocolate milk.
But.what about chickens 7
I received a question from
Howard Longhead of West
Chester that askes that
question:
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Brief-answers'
to short questions
Sheila's
Shorts
By Sheila Miller
Thirty years ago my wife’s
mother got 100 Rhode T«l«nd
Red peeps every Spring. She
culled the full-size ones each
Fall, keeping the ones that
supposedly could lay, and
eating or selling the roosters
and non-producer*. She sold
the eggs to bay her chi .ken
feed.
""Along witfa~therchickens,
' she raised a small garden for
the family’s use. One time
something made all the
onions go bad they went
over the garden fence and
through the chickens. In
abont a week, the eggs had a
decidedly rank taste and
could not be sold.
Just recently, the eggs
that my wife and I now buy
from markets in Lancaster
and Chester County have a
“scorched” taste when we
soft' boil them. It finally
dawned on me that this is
probably due to over
roasting or horning die grain
used for feed.
I called the County Agent
and explained this to Mm,
bat he just laughed and said
no one else complains.
What would came this off
flavor in die eggs?
Mr Longhead, this is a
new sort of question because
I have never heard of
chickens eggs picking up the
flavor of their feed. Ad
mittedly, I am more familiar
with what happens to a dairy
cow’s milk once she dines on
garlic growing in the
pasture.
To help me out m finding
the answer to your question,
I recruited the assistance of
Pennfield Corporation’s
nutritionist Dr. John Fid
dler.
Quickly running your
question by him via the
UnMSterJar.ming,.SktMr.cU)u Amust23,,lBB<k-Al3
telephone, he digested all the
input and said, - “The
possibilities of scorched feed
creating a similar taste in
the egg are slim.”
The flavor, he said would
not happen m the egg as a
result of feed going through
the bird. “It might be
possible for the egg to pick
up a flavor if there is scor
ched material in the feeder
and the egg is exposed to the
odor but here again, the
egg is only there a short
time.”
When he pondered the
possibility of the onions
having created a rank taste
in the eggs those many years
ago, his reaction was one of
not knowing. “We’ve never
fed .onions or added them to
the chicken feed, so I really
wouldn’t know,” he said.
Why the flavor shows up in
milk, he explained, is
because the onions and
garlic produce a volatile
organic acid which can be
transferred into the milk
production m the case of the
dairy cow.
One recommendation Dr.
Fiddler shared was to be
sure there are, no food odors
in the refrigerator that
might be creating this
flavor. “Processed and
stored eggs will pick up
odors from the
refrigerator,” he said.
So, Mr. Longhead,
althrough it hasn’t been
decisively ruled out that
over-roasted feed can create
a scorched taste in eggs,
Pennfield’s nutritionist says
the chances are “remote”.
It’s a long food chain from
the chicken to the table with
any number of places where
the eggs might be exposed to
odors. Let’s hope that the
problem of “scorched” eggs
doesn’t persist.
Chase’em or corral’em?
By now, I’m beginning to
feel that Roland Kamoda of
Monongahaela and I are
long-time friends. He is a
loyal supporter of my
column, and sends me dif
ferent and unusual questions
every few weeks.
His question this week
concerns something that
anyone who has ever had the
frustrations of trying to
round up cattle that just
don’t want to cooperate has
experienced.
Maybe in a future issue
you could mention about
information on types of
holding pens and loading
chutes. It seems I do a lot of
cowboying and 1 should
remember the saying a
physics teacher told me; “If
you can’t get ahead use
the one yon have.”
Rather than try to get into
the many different types of
corrals and chutes that are
available depending on your
bam and pasture system,
I’m going to refer you to an
excellent publication put out
by Penn State called Beef
Cow Management (File
Number; IVDI 10M478
U.Ed. W99'
I was first introduced to
this reference after a cow
calf seminar held at Penn
State this past Winter on the
three coldest, snowiest days.
It is filled from cover to
cover with information on
feeding and nutrition, feed
production, herd health,
finishing for slaughter, herd
management, and buildings
and equipment.
They have measured
drawings of cattle corrals
and diagram the optimum
layout for crowding cattle.
See your County agent for
information on how to get a
copy of this handbook, or
contact Lester A. Burdette
at Penn State.
For the small fee it costs to
get a copy of this
publication, you can’t afford
not to have one.
Have a problem or a
question that needs an
swering? Send it in to
Sheila’s Shorts and I’ll see
what I can do to help.
so
I .
,v J/V
Og?