The yolk's on you, twice, with N.S. company's eggs
EdenValley hens the right age for laying double-yolk eggs
Last Updated: Friday, October 31, 2008 | 2:28 PM ET
Young hens from one Nova Scotia producer appear to be beating the odds by producing what seems to be an unusual proportion of eggs with double yolks.
"You never come across this many," said Mark Tingley, a breakfast chef with Esquire Restaurant, cracking egg after egg with two yolks inside.
"I don't know it's unheard of in 16 years of doing it.… Crazy. I don't know. I gotta sit down. This is nuts."
Experts say the odds of finding such an egg are about one in 1,000. But CBC News bought nine dozen EdenValley brand eggs, and eight of those cartons were full of eggs with double yolks — that's 96 eggs out of 108.
EdenValley Farms, located in Port Williams, says the double-yolk phenomenon in its eggs is directly linked to the age of its flock.
"The younger the flock, the more double yolks you're going to have," said farm manager Ted Corkum. "That's just the way it is."
A chicken will lay a double-yolk egg when its reproductive system releases two yolks or egg cells at the same time, something a hen is more likely to do when it's on the brink of maturity. Older hens generally lay only eggs with single yolks.
And there's no reason to be concerned by the appearance of twice as much yellow stuff, either.
The eggs appear to be quite normal otherwise, said Alex Oderkirk, a poultry specialist with the agricultural consulting firm Agra Point.
"They are normal other than they've got that second yolk in them," he said "It's quite normal — nothing spooky here."
http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2008/1 ... yolks.html
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