Fact Check: Eggs of Kadaknath Chicken are not black in colour as its meat!

Narrative on Social Media

A Facebook page named Ottamoolikal shared a post bearing text in Malayalam along with an image of a black chicken and black coloured eggs. The Malayalam text translates as such: “This is Kadaknath chicken which is found in some areas of Madhya Pradesh. Its meat and eggs appear to be in black colour. It is mostly used for various medicinal purposes.”

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Black chicken is a rare species of chicken, which is getting widely popular due to claims that it has medicinal properties. The post claims three things here; Kadaknath chicken has medicinal properties, black coloured meat and black coloured eggs. Is Kadaknath chicken beneficial for health? Is its meat black in colour? Do these chickens lay black coloured eggs? Let’s find out the facts.

Our Fact Check

In order to know more about Kadaknath chicken we researched material regarding Kadaknath chicken available online. After going through various articles on Kadaknath we found out the following facts:

1. Kadaknath or Kali Masi is a breed of chicken which is native to Jhabua and Dhar districts of the state of Madhya Pradesh.
2. Kadaknath has very high protein content as compared to other breeds of chicken.
3. Kadaknath has very low fat content as compared to other breeds of chicken. Kadaknath contains only 0.73-1.03% fat as compared to other breeds that contain 13-25% fat. This makes Kadaknath a preferable low fat source of proteins.
4. The meat and the feathers of Kadaknath chicken are black in colour. This is due to very high levels of Melanin.
5. Melanin is a protein which is responsible for the colour of skin and flesh. Melanin is made of Tyrosine, which has a lot of medicinal benefits. Tyrosine is an amino acid that is naturally produced in the body from another amino acid called phenylalanine.
6. Apart from melanin, tyrosine helps in making several important substances like adrenaline, noradrenaline, dopamine and thyroid hormones.
7. Adrenaline plays a very vital role in fighting stress. Adrenaline and Noradrenaline hormones are responsible for body’s fight or flight response to stressful situations.
8. Dopamine regulates brain’s reward and pleasure centres. It also plays a key role in our memory and brain functioning.
9. Thus, Kadaknath meat with high melanin content and low fat content is beneficial to health.
10. But the colour of its eggs is not black as mentioned in the post. The eggs of Kadaknath are creamy white in colour. A video published by The Lallantop is given below. In the video a centre for breeding Kadaknath chicken sponsored by the state government can be seen. The entire process from hatching of chicks till they are grow up into adult chickens. In the initial part of the video, a setting machine has been explained. The eggs are kept in the setting machine for some time following which they are moved into another machine called hatching machine where the chicks are hatched. The eggs seen in the machines are creamy white in colour.

11. The image of the eggs given in the post is not of Kadaknath’s eggs. We tried to find out more about the eggs. Out of all the avian species, the closest one that lays such eggs is the Emu.

12. Emu eggs are dark green in colour and sometimes they are so dark that they appear blackish. The eggs shown in the image might Emu’s eggs.

Conclusion

Most of the claims made in the post are mostly true except for one. The eggs of Kadaknath chicken are not black in colour but creamy white. Kadaknath is a rare breed of chicken which has very high protein content and low fat content. Due to high amounts of melanin it is very helpful in producing several vital neurotransmitters and hormones that can prove helpful in several diseases.

Images courtesy: Google