I coordinate a couple of local food clubs in my area of town, and we recently began purchasing eggs from a different farmer. These eggs are amazing and quite unlike anything you’ve ever purchased at the store I’m quite sure – organic or not!
Ever seen double yolk eggs before, not just one in a blue moon, but LOTS of them?Â
The egg delivery I received this week had eggs so large that some of them looked like duck eggs. In addition, half or maybe more were double yolk eggs! It is easy to see why eggs like this are never in stores. There is little chance they would even fit in a standard size carton!
In addition, eggs this size typically come from layers that are older. Since chickens that mass produce eggs don’t live very long due to unfavorable living conditions, this would also keep egg size in check.
If you’ve never seen eggs like this, why not? Are you still supporting the industrial food complex by buying your eggs at the store, which are, in many cases, months old?
Even organic eggs from the store are no comparison. Just get some farm fresh eggs and compare the difference. Deep golden to orange yolks, much bigger size, stronger shell, better taste, double yolks, cheaper price.
You don’t need any double blind studies to see and taste the difference. Your five senses will do you just fine, thank you!
By the way, if double yolk chicken eggs aren’t easily available to you, look for goose eggs instead. They are becoming more widely available and the larger yolk makes them comparably as rich as their double yolked cousins.
*Thank you to Paul Hardiman for emailing this mouth watering picture to me shortly after Tuesday’s pickup. What a fantastic brunch you enjoyed, Paul!
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
Hi Candace, fertilized eggs have this happen from time to time. No worries .. it cooks up and is very tasty. I’ve had these myself in the past.
Those would be nice to get my hands on since my little ones can only eat the yolks! I will say that pastured eggs in our area are still more expensive than even organic or free range eggs from the store…by more than a dollar. Guess I just need to keep looking!
If you get a lot of double yolks, that makes the higher price more reasonable as you are getting far more egg for your dollar. Just a thought.
One of the things I’ve noticed about the pastured eggs I buy, beyond the beautiful orange color, is how large the yolk is relative to the entire egg. They are the only eggs I would ever eat raw. I can’t imagine ever going back to eating eggs from the supermarket.
Sarah,
I hard-boiled a dozen of the eggs we got on Tuesday. Three of them, so far, have turned out to be double yolkers. It was a fun surprise to eat into the egg and find the two balls of yolk. My two year old didn’t blink twice but the rest of us knew it was quite a sight to see! I had been just telling the kids and hubby about these eggs and then voila I got your daily blog and shared it with the family.
Cheers,
Andrea
We just acquired 6 chickens from a lady who had 15 she had pastured (her dogs decided to start killing them so she gave the final 6 away, a blessing to us as we have been tossing around the idea of getting chickens for several months.) We’ve had them for one week and so far had one double yolker.
I love watching them roam around the yard and woods on our 5 acres.
Sarah – you mentioned shell hardness – do you know if it is true that you need to give chickens oyster shells (or feed containing such) to keep their shells hard/so they won’t peck them? (i’ve heard both stories).
Our birds thus far are not eating much of the feed we have in their house because they spend most of the day outside their pen. (Even when they are in their pen it is roughly 75×50 so there is plenty to sractch.)
Hi Danielle, I am no expert on raising layers by any means. I am more of an expert on eating them and identifying a good quality egg! LOL. That being said, most of the producers I’ve worked with over the years have given their chickens some sort of fish meal to add calcium and other minerals which does strengthen the shell considerably. There may be other ways, but I am not familiar with all the ins and outs.
We recycle our egg shells right back to the chickens. They will peck at the shells with the other vegetable scraps we give them. The calcium from the shell goes right back into the chicken.
Sarah, I cracked an egg this morning that was filled w/bright red blood. Any idea what causes this? Not exactly the most appetizing experience; but it is, after all, nature we’re dealing w/here!
Double yolks are nice – but that picture!!!!!! The yolks are sooooooo pale!!!!! Your farmer may have double yolk layers in production but his hens are not eating enough salad – pale yellow yolks. I raise chickens and ducks and try for nearly year round pasture so the chickens are health and so are their eggs. The orange pigmentation of the yolk signifies quality and nutrition – pale yellow indicate lack of green feed and come from hens who eat mostly corn and soy based feeds without clover and bugs and the benefits of the great outdoors…..
Happy egg eating….
w
Well, the shells are nice and hard and I’ve found the hardness of the shell to be a better indicator of nutrition than the yolk color. Orange is nice but I’ve come across more than one producer who plays games by putting beta carotene in the feed which turns the yolks orange. I find no problem with these yolks due to the hardness of the shell.
Just because you can artificially make a less-nutritious yolk look orange, it doesn’t necessarily follow that a really nutritious one can be pale. How did you decide that shell hardness = high nutrient content? Are you somehow measuring the nutrients in the hard-shelled eggs that you eat?
Different breeds of chickens can eat exactly the same diet and produce eggs with the same color yolks and drastically different shell thicknesses. If the chicken doesn’t get enough calcium, shell quality can suffer without necessarily affecting other nutritional qualities. Also, many chickens’ egg laying cycle is just a little longer than 24 hours – the same hen may lay an egg in the morning one day, at noon the next, and late afternoon the next, then skip a day and lay one with a very thick shell the following morning. Similarly, some hens that are just starting to lay may lay their eggs in the middle of the night, resulting in an egg with no shell, or just the very beginning of a shell at one end. The”guts” of that egg are identical to one that isn’t laid early, the bird’s body just hasn’t quite worked out its timing yet.
The yolks from the eggs I’m referring to are not pale. They are a deep yellow to orange color. Hard shelled eggs are more nutritious and hard shells can’t be faked like yolk color can. I live on a lake and we occasionally get eggs from the wild ducks that live there (they eat mostly fish and poke around for bugs on our back yard. The shells of those wild duck eggs are so hard they are practically porcelein.
Generally, a weak shell is a sign of low calcium intake. I can always tell whether our flock needs oyster shell based upon shell thickness. I wouldn’t think that would have much to do with the nutrient content of the egg itself, though, as usually we seek out eggs for fat soluble vitamins (well…and general yumminess, of course 🙂 ). In our flock, though, the alpha bird will steal oyster shell from the poor lowest in pecking order, so she inevitably produces thin-shelled eggs, and there’s not much we can do about it without caging her.
My customers tell me that while my eggs are a bit smaller in actual size than grocery store eggs, the yolks are 1/3 larger in comparison to store eggs. Free-range, non-GMO feed with added organic fishmeal. The flavor is incredible, too.
I love farm fresh eggs! There is no comparison to store bought eggs. We’re hoping to start raising our own laying chickens this year and I can’t wait.
The cholesterol in eggs is the kind that is healthy for you .. it is the oxidized cholesterol in processed foods that will gunk up your arteries. Eggs have long been absolved of contributing to any heart disease problems. I’ve written about this on the blog before. Eat those egg yolks with abandon, that’s where the most nutrition is!