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Are 29 Double-Yolked Eggs Better Than One?
By Alice Wessendorf on 07/04/2011
Charlotte Matthews of the U.K. bought a tray of 30 eggs. Not an unusual occurrence for the 26-year old mom since she’s a cake decorator. But what was unusual is that the first thirteen eggs she cracked open had double yolks.
Once Charlotte had reached lucky number thirteen she asked her husband to grab the camera and tape her opening the remainder of the eggs. As you will see in the amazing video above all of the remaining eggs in the tray...except for one...were double yolkers.
If you are anything like me you might now be wondering about how common the double-yolk phenomenon is and whether or not it’s “normal.”
After doing a bit of research I found out that the occurrence in nature is about 1 in 1000 eggs. Those odds make it seem like a terrifically rare occurrence. However, when you consider how many eggs a chicken can lay in it’s lifetime…up to 800 for some breeds…and how many chickens there are it's not quite as rare as it may at first seem.
It turns out that double yolks occur more often in heavy laying breeds and in young hens that haven’t gotten the kinks quite worked out yet in their laying patterns. The yolks form in the hen’s ovaries and she can sometimes release two in quick succession not allowing enough time for the first yolk to pass out of the oviduct alone and entrapping both yolks into a single shell.
But let’s get back to the rarity of Charlotte’s tray of 29 double-yolk eggs. While about 1 in 1000 eggs is a double yolk it’s not so rare of an occurence that most of us haven’t seen at least one of them in our lifetime. But the odds of getting 29 in a single tray on the other hand are 1,000 to the power of 29 - or one followed by 87 zeros!
Incredibly rare indeed.
Oh, and if all the bickering over whether or not eggs are good or bad for you has you confused you can read HealthierTalk.com contributor Dr. Jonathan Wright's answer to this question here.
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About the author
An enthusiastic believer in the power of natural healing, Alice has spent virtually her entire 17-year career in the natural-health publishing field helping to spread the word.
She is an advocate of self-education and is passionate about the power of group knowledge sharing, like the kind found right here on HealthierTalk.com. Alice loves to share her views on holistic and natural healing as well as her, sometimes contentious, thoughts on the profit-driven inner workings of traditional medicine.
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Comments
Anonymous
How long ago was this??? These days you can go to the grocery store and purchase a dozen eggs packaged as being "double-yoked" any time. Granted they are not as numerous as normal eggs, but are certainly available if you care to look for them.
NYC
This has become common in New York as well. That's why I started to purchase organic eggs. Something is not right here. GMO?
Anonymous
got to love that genetic modification
Lori
This makes me think of deviled eggs I served at a bridal shower last year. We eat only organic eggs, so I boiled up a bunch. But when I went to cut them, I realized the yolks were really close to the top of the egg, some more on the left, some more on the right, but I couldn't use them because the whites were tearing. So I bought some conventional eggs, boiled them up and found each yolk right smack dab in the middle of the white. The yolks were also all the same size. Standardized eggs?!
Anonymous
I've had a dozen eggs all double yokers.
eastern us
Approx. one month ago i purchased a dozen local large eggs and every one of them all 12 had a double yoke. I said to someone i never saw one let alone 12. i figured it was genetic modification as mentioned above.
Anonymous
Someone could have done this on purpose. They could look through a hole with the egg and see the double yokes. Maybe the woman did this herself she collected double yokes and made the film. There can be lots of answers, but I've only bought a few double yokes. I don't believe tese double yoke eggs were laid at random like this. I've gotten plenty of double yokes from getting eggs from farmers. i could collect them and say look at this.
Anonymous
I am not an expert on egg laying or hormones, but I have to wonder if there are hormones being incorporated into the hens to produce this effect.
Not an alarmist
This is not GMO, and the author is disingenous with the odds. The 1 in a 1000 is not spread evenly across a chickens lifetime, as stated above they often occur in young birds that are heavy layers. When a farmer relenishes his flock he/she buys what? Yes a flock of young heavy laying chickens so therefore the farmer is likely to be collecting a large number od double yoked eggs in the first few weeks. Eggs in the UK are sorted by size so they end up in the same tray. It's not rocket science and it definately isn't GMO.
Alice Wessendorf
Hi Not an alarmist,
Thanks for your comment. However, I must admit, I'm a bit puzzled.
I never suggested that the double yolk eggs were the result of GMO. In fact, my point was that I was interested to learn that (a) young hens and certain breeds are prone to double yolk eggs (thus meaning a young flock or a flock of a certain kind would likely produce many doubles) and (b) that this many double yolks in a batch that are unsorted is indeed a very rare occurrence and thus is quite a fun story.
Perhaps you were confused by some of the comments under the story? I personally don't happen to think this is the result of GMO, but, I for one, however, welcome all thoughts and ideas on the subject even if they don't coincide with my own.
Now I must admit that I know nothing about chickens or egg laying...a fact that I think is sadly pretty clear :-)...which is why I consulted a number of online sources to find the information that I shared included the statistics that you called "disingenuous." These statistics come from a number of sources including chicken farmers and several reputable UK news reports talking about this incident.
At any rate, I appreciate your thoughts and I'm glad you shared them! And I still think this is a fun story :-)
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