Latest news from Big Barn and our producers.
We received an email this morning asking about double yolk eggs and what the chances were of getting 6 in one box!
Here are the questions from the email with our answers:
Question: How common is it to get a double yoke from one egg?
BigBarn: Fairly common if the chickens have only just started laying, are fed lots of food and are a certain breed.
Question: Is this a common occurrence?
BigBarn: It is probably more common in intensive farming where all the chickens are the exactly the same age, breed and fed high protein diets
Question: If it is a rare occurrence then how rare would 6 eggs be?
BigBarn: I wouldn’t be surprised if the intensive farms have worked out how to detect double yokers (they are often larger) and occasionally put them all in the same box for PR reasons.
Question: I was very surprised to discover that all 6 eggs from the same box were in fact double yoke eggs!
BigBarn: If double yoke eggs are larger they are more likely to be in the same box so they all look the same.
I am not an egg farmer but do have 5 happy free range chickens. We occasionally get a double yolker which is usually larger. I think from the reasons above 6 double yolkers in one box is not a coincidence more an example of intensive production and uniform packing lines.
I would rather have local free range eggs any day!
We welcome your thoughts.