Duck eggs with green yolks?

[ChickenfootDuckbutt]

Hello there!,

I am new here but have had ducks for a while, so am well versed in all the crazy things ducks do from swollowing impossibly large objects to laying shell-less eggs.

anyway this was is new to me and I'm hoping someone can help.


I free-range my ducks daily, and they have full acess to the yard and the woods.and at night they are fed their dinner of layer pellets and locked into their pen.

I found last fall, that a few eggs I tried to eat had very VERY dark almost navy green yolks:/ where as others did not. the eggs with green yolks are as fresh and any other I do not let my eggs sit for more than a few hours, well things had been going good so far this year, lots of good eggs with nice orange yolks, then bam, the other day i had to throw away about 1/2 a dozen because they ALL had green yolks. the yolks are always formed and even have fertile spots on them and they do not smell one bit. but I'm afraid to eat them, because obviously I do not like green eggs...and ham

all the ducks are healthy. no signs of illness what so ever and many are going on 1 and 2 years old.

could all the grass be making the yolks green, I know alot of whatever a duck/chicken eggs can affect the taste and color of the yolk.

could they be eating something in the woods? I've tried a few other forums but everyone was a stumped as I am.

thanks for any help!

ChickenfootDuckbutt

 

[gofasterstripe]

This topic has been brought up before and I think they said it has to do with them eating acorns. Somehting in them makes the yolks go green. But wait out, im sure others will chime in.

 

[critterranch]

chestnuts? walnuts?and acorns? we have alot of black walnut trees was wondering myself too?

 

[ChickenfootDuckbutt]

the trees at the back of the property are mostly oak trees, and the ducks had a ball when the acorns dropped last fall. and now are picking the seedlings out of the leaf litter and eating them.

is it safe to eat the eggs even if they had green yolks and are not rotten? I wouldn't cause it's just wierd looking.

I will have to take a pic next time I get a green-yolked egg.

 

[pringle]

Probably safe to eat them but they might taste gross.I make acorn flour,which is very nutritous and tasty but you must boil the shelled acorns at least 5 times to get the bitter tannins out.

 

[AdamD77]

I knew I had read something about this recently, it is mentioned in the Egg Quality Guide produced by DEFRA (Department for the Environment, Food & Rural Affairs) in the UK. Here it is:

"Abnormal Yolk Colour
The colour of the yolk is determined by the diet of the bird, although some disease conditions can also contribute. Green yolks can be caused by birds consuming green herbage to excess. The colour can vary from olive to khaki but may only affect a proportion of birds within a flock. The fault occurs most frequently in the spring when herbage is most lush and where birds take a higher proportion of their feed from the range."

Here's a link to the document, there's some interesting stuff in it

http://www.defra.gov.uk/foodfarm/food/industry/sectors/eggspoultry/documents/eggqual.pdf

 

[ChickenfootDuckbutt]

I'm glad this has been cleared up for me

a neighbor I gave some eggs to swore up and down that they were rotten when she got some green yolks, I told her when she had a rotten eggs she'd clearly know it, theres no other smell on the planet

would the green yolks affect the development of ducklings should one of my ducks go broody/I hatch some?, I've got three of my eggs on week three in the incubator now as well as 10 Ancona eggs from a breeder and so far they look good.

 

[Crazyfarmer66]

i have them to if you have a dog you can feed the green ones to the dog raw and my dog loves them

 

[TymberrWolf]

Hey I'm incubating a duck egg with a green yolk (at least it appears pretty dark during candling) and I don't know if this changes the fact that it's healthy or not. I'm not really sure, but I'm just wondering if you can hatch a green yolked duck egg.

 

[Ducktown]

I'm sure you can.