Egg Whites with a Lift: Hemp Meal in the Henhouse

The layers were served what might be called a luxury meal by poultry standards: a diet spiked with 10% hemp inflorescence meal. Not the kind of hemp snack you’d find at a human café, but a carefully balanced feed designed to test whether a plant byproduct could earn its place at the hen’s table.

For four weeks, the birds tucked into their new ration. They kept laying on schedule, eating as usual, showing no dips in health or performance. But the real surprise was inside the eggs. Albumen height rose, freshness scores climbed, and yolk-to-white ratios shifted.

And no, despite the “hemp” label, there wasn’t a trace of CBD or THC in the eggs. Breakfast stayed perfectly safe.

A Meal Hens Could Appreciate

The layers were offered a diet enriched with 10% hemp meal. For people, that crumbly mix wouldn’t qualify as food, but for hens it was packed with useful protein and fiber. They ate steadily, laid normally, and showed no changes in health or performance. Most importantly, not a trace of CBD or THC appeared in the eggs.

The difference came once the eggs were tested. Egg whites from hemp-fed hens were firmer, rose higher, and scored better on freshness scales. The yolk-to-white balance tipped toward more albumen, producing eggs with stronger internal structure. In practical terms: eggs that poach neatly, whip into lighter meringues, and hold freshness longer.

Turning Waste into Value

Hemp inflorescence meal is usually discarded after extraction. Surprisingly, it contains a good amount of protein, making it more than just leftover plant material. Here, it became a functional feed, improving egg quality without sacrificing safety. That shift could mean less reliance on conventional protein sources like soybean meal, while giving real value to what was once waste.

Takeaway

Hemp didn’t change how many eggs the hens laid, and it didn’t sneak cannabinoids into breakfast. But it did give the eggs a quiet lift, turning a byproduct into a feed ingredient that made eggs firmer, fresher, and more useful in the kitchen. Sometimes what looks like scrap has one more role to play.