Peebottle Farms: What to feed your chickens to get the best eggs? | Grist
"Lately, I've been wondering what I have to feed my chickens to recreate that pasta here in Brooklyn.
I started my search for advice with the cookbook author and teacher Giuliano Bugialli. He said that the Italian chickens that make really orange yolks have brown and "shining" feathers and eat mostly dried whole corn and grains. "Even farro when it was not fashionable as it is now," he said, adding, "I have never seen such chickens in the U.S."
Harold McGee, in his indispensible book, On Food and Cooking, confirms that the yellow color of egg yolks comes from eating corn, as well as alfalfa. This I could do, but Bugialli had suggested that the real magic might lie in the breeding. Next I emailed Mario Batali. He chalks the quality of Italian eggs up to their pasture-based lifestyle that allows them to eat all the bugs and grubs they can find. "Homogenized chicken feed is just an accelerant (to make chickens grow faster) and doesn't add to the flavor of their eggs," he said."Read full article here | Grist
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