Wawasee High School student Laurana Perry is checking the water being given to chickens in the poultry facility on the high school campus. Students are researching chicken eggs in the advanced life science animals class.

SYRACUSE — In mid-November an open house was held to unveil the new poultry facility on the Wawasee High School campus. Laying chickens and broilers were moved into the facility at that time.

Part of the intent of the facility was to allow students the opportunity to research chicken eggs and how they are related to nutrition quality. This week, the researching began.

Multiple groups of students are researching how what is fed to chickens can alter the color of the egg yolks, as well as one student who is actually trying to change the egg itself. The students are in the advanced life science animals class taught by Joan Harden.

McKenzie Turner, Laurana Perry and Amanda Foy are in a group researching how feeding different things to the chickens changes the egg yolk color. The three have been checking the water and feed for the chickens each day, though they don’t necessarily have to feed them everyday.

Connor Grumme is trying to naturally change the color of the egg yolks. He is doing so through different options such as leaving them on regular feed, giving them marigold extract, giving them white cornmeal and giving them vegetables such as tomatoes and red peppers. The marigold extract should change the color of the yolks to a deep orange, the white cornmeal would make the yolks colorless and the vegetables would make the color more red.

He plans to submit his project for an agriscience fair in FFA.

Madelyn Zimmerman is trying to change the entire egg itself. One chicken is being fed oyster shells in hopes of making a thicker, more dense egg. Another is being fed high protein so it will lay eggs more often and the eggs will be larger. Another is being fed low protein to show a size difference in the eggs compared to the higher protein fed chicken.

And a fourth chicken is being fed garlic to produce a more flavored egg.

Grumme and Zimmerman are using ISA brown chickens, while the other group is using Brahma, Ameraucana and barred rock chickens.

“They are showing the yolk color is determined by what they (chickens) eat,” Harden noted, and the color of the yolk doesn’t necessarily mean the egg is more nutritious. Purdue University will analyze the eggs for nutritional quality and provide a report prior to the end of the school year.

As a final part of the research projects, students will be required to write official lab reports such as what would be submitted in a college class.

Another group will research how what chickens are fed determines the thickness of the egg shell.

It’s feeding time for at least one of the ISA brown chickens in the poultry facility at Wawasee High School.