Yesterday I fried an egg for lunch. It was a large egg – sort of elongated and, lo and behold, there were 2 yolks. This is the 2nd time I’ve gotten a double-yolk egg from my chickens. Since I’ve collected 59 eggs so far and only about 1 in 1000 are supposed to be double, I’m doing well (assuming you like yolks).
Eggs apparently are more apt to contain double yolks when the hen has recently begun laying. There is also a chance that it’s a genetic thing so we might have a chook that lays doubles her whole life. I wouldn’t mind but I wonder if she would.
I’ve been tracking the weight and quantity of the eggs my chooks produce; the first double-yolker was 56 grams and I’m pretty sure it was Bronwyn’s 3rd egg (or Rosie’s or Isabel’s 2nd). This one was 66 grams (ouch – the average size is 48 grams so far) and probably about the 15th egg laid by whoever laid it.
I can think of 3 downsides to double-yolks:
- It’s got to be harder on the hen to lay (and she must need to eat even more than normal – which is a whole lot).
- Surely it messes up any recipe. (Does it have the same amount of white? This morning I made friands which called for 3 eggs, if one of them had a double yolk, would I only use 2 eggs?)
- Each chicken has a fixed number of eggs to lay in their life. If they start doubling up, you get fewer eggs over the life of the hen. (Bummer.)
The upsides are:
- Cool factor.
- I like to dip my toast in runny yolks – double yolks, double dipping, double good.
- Double yolks are supposed to bring good luck.
That’s 3 pros and 3 cons in the double-yolk debate so I get to cast the tie-break… I like them!
Laura Rittenhouse's Gardening Journal 
yummy i like yolks too
Do you think a double yolk has double the cholesterol? I guess I don’t really care that much. But it might be interesting to get my cholesterol next year to see if my chooks have any impact there.
probably but taking care of your chickens i imagine offsets any extra cholesterol you might get from eating double yolk eggs, i dont diet or worry about what i eat but i am in the garden and working so much i couldn’t put on weight if i wanted
Yahhhh… another doubble yolk. We have one hen that has layed quite a few of these now… probably about 6-8. It is a cool factor, never thought of the down side, but your right less eggs over a life time. Well I will try not to worry about what I can’t control and just enjoy 🙂
Roycellambert, I’m not sure I couldn’t put on weight because of how much work I do in the garden. My garden is very small and even on my active days I’m not often out there for more than a couple of hours. But I’m with you in that I don’t worry about my diet – I figure eating stuff I grow and making things from scratch takes care of 80% of what I should be doing for my diet. The rest I rely on my taste buds to guide me in the right direction.
Seasongirl, the “just enjoy” approach to egg harvesting (and eating) is the only way to go. As you point out, we can’t control it anyway. Of course enjoying it is pretty easy because the whole chicken keeping thing is quite a bit of fun.