No Yolk About It: Council Demonstrates How Corn Distillers Oil Creates Favorable Pigmentation In Mexican Egg Yolks

The true question may not be which came first – the chicken or the egg – but rather, what was the color of the yolk? In Mexico, the U.S. Grains Council (USGC) is working with poultry producers to examine how U.S. corn distillers oil (CDO) – a co-product of ethanol production – can help achieve the darker yellow egg yolk desired by consumers and boost the immune systems of the chickens that lay those eggs. Mexican consumers prefer yellow-skinned chickens and dark yellow egg yolks. Shifting the color of an egg yolk from pale yellow to dark yellow can be accomplished by changing a chicken’s diet. To do so, Mexican layer producers often add a pigmenting agent, mainly marigold extract, to feed rations, which also adds to the cost of the finished feed. Council staff proposed a different solution – CDO, which was already being added to Mexican poultry rations for its energy value. A research project conducted with North Carolina State University successfully demonstrated CDO contained ...