Chia for your pets - if it clucks.

Most people know chia as the green stuff that sprouts from terra-cotta animals sold on late-night TV. Two researchers now believe they can bestow a lot more respect on this relative of the mint by putting it into some real animals--chickens.

Chia seeds contain plenty of omega-3 fats, which, unlike cholesterol-elevating saturated fats, appear to lower the risk of heart attack. The beneficial effects of these fats have spawned several efforts over the past decade to rehabilitate the image of eggs by feeding fish meal (SN: 5/7/88, p. 300), purslane (SN: 11/25/89, p. 351), or flax--all good sources of omega-3 fats--to laying hens.

While these doctored diets produced some favorable fat changes in egg yolks, they also tended to impart an objectionable taste or unusually short shelf life. Wayne Coates of the University of Arizona in Tucson and Ricardo Ayerza of the University of Catamarca in Argentina now think chia may be the solution.

They substituted chia seeds for 30 percent of the usual feed eaten by hens at a commercial egg production facility in Argentina. The birds seemed to like the seeds, and egg output and size remained normal.

The real benefit appears to be the yolks' heart-friendlier fat profile. Alpha-linolenic acid--a plant-derived omega-3 fat normally absent from chicken chow and therefore from eggs--constitutes 12 percent of the fat in eggs from chia-fed hens. The ratio of saturated to polyunsaturated fats in these eggs is half that in normal eggs. Best of all, Coates says, chia eggs don't taste unusual, "and there is every indication their shelf life will be good."