Interesting info, Pullet, thanks for posting. The eggs we get from the supermarket here in Okinawa are so, so much better than American eggs. Their yolks are dark orange, they taste great, and they seem much fresher. They are generally kept in the refrigerated section of the supermarkets, but when I get them home I’ve always just stored them on the counter because we have very limited fridge space. We usually go through a carton (ten eggs) or so a week, but sometimes they sit on the counter for two weeks or so. We’ve been here two years and I’ve had one bad egg (the others in the carton were fine). Should I stop doing this? By the time I get them home from the grocery store, they’re dry anyway. Should I be putting them back in the fridge?
The color of the yolk comes from colored pigments (specifically xanthophyl) in the hen’s diet. Here in California, chickens are fed a lot of corn, which is high in colored pigments, so the yolks are quite orange. In other parts of the country, chickens are fed more often on wheat, so their yolks are lighter yellow. Folks who grew up on the East coast often think California eggs are artificial or radioactive somehow, the color difference is so extreme. Californians are so used to orange yolks that producers will ship marigold petals in from Mexico to supplement the hens those years that they can’t get as much corn for the diets. To a Californian, a pale yolk looks sickly.
I’ve heard (will experiment as soon as my hens are old enough to lay) that you can get eggs with red, blue, and green yolks by putting food coloring in the feed. So cool, if true.
If it were possible, I would love to know how the human mortality rate changed after we discovered cooking. Cooking does wonders to keep us healthy. Provided you cook your eggs all the way through, you’ll probably never have a problem keeping your eggs this way. The fact that you go through them relatively quickly also helps.
This thread is making me so happy about going for higher education! Normally, I get grief for spending so much money to study chickens.
I’ve heard of chickens devouring local plagues of crickets and laying green-yolked eggs as a result.
I do not like them, Sam I Am.
My mom has chickens (for the eggs, not the meat). She feeds them corn and kitchen scraps, mostly, and lets them scratch for bugs in the dirt of their large coop. The eggs are wonderfully rich, and the yolks are kind of a middlish yellow, darker than store eggs but not orange. No, she gets more of the orange when the hens get grass clippings retrieved from a freshly mowed lawn. I’ve read in a couple of places that this happens because there’s something in the grass that the hens metabolize into beta carotene (IIRC), which lends the yolks the richer color. The same sources also say that these eggs are a lot more nutritionally dense and complex, i.e. better for you. (They also taste amazing.) As such, the hens are getting more grass now than they did when she started keeping them. Anyway, can you confirm, refute, or clarify any of this?
Sounds like your mom is on the right track.
Chemistry has always been my nemesis, but my limited understanding is that there are a lot of carotenoids with xanthophyll and beta carotene being two common examples.
From what I understand, the hen doesn’t do much metabolizing of the carotenoids. She basically takes what she eats in the plants and puts them directly into the yolks.
Because carotenoids come in different colors, the darkness of the yolk isn’t necessarily a measure of how much carotenoid is in the yolk. Might just be a different kind of carotenoid. At least, everything I’ve heard is that pale yolked eggs from wheat fed birds are not significantly nutritionally different from dark yolked eggs from corn fed birds.
That said, you can influence the nutritional content of the egg with diet. There is a lot of work being done on making eggs that are high in Omega 3 fatty acids, the heart healthy fatty acid found in fish, by feeding chickens algae supplements or flaxseed or other things. Drawback is that the eggs taste slightly fishy. But, it’s a cool idea.
(Just for completeness: Malnurished hens will produce abnormal eggs, and one of the abnormalities is pale colored yolks. However, it’s hard to malnurish a chicken in the first place, and even harder to do it such that the only problem is pale yolks. Commercial diets are well balanced, and hens out foraging will keep themselves fine)
Hooray for fighting the cricket hoards! I can’t wait to unleash my hens on the beetles in my yard. Damned things!
I’m really looking forward to the day that I have a house with a big enough yard that I can have a couple of pet chickens for the fresh eggs. A close family friend had a pet chicken and she was so cool. She’d sit on your lap and play with the cat. She was allowed in the house, too (tile floors, not carpet).
Would it be better if I washed my eggs in soapy water when I got them home from the store? Would that help with the bacteria at all?
I find eggs from hens able to forage for (or deliberately fed) invertebrates to be noticeably more tasty in the yolk than regular eggs (and I’m certain I could discern it blindfolded). Given what you said about the hens putting things in the eggs without a lot of processing (which rings completely true to me), I think we can conclude: Bugs are tasty!
If you’re looking to colour the yolks, why not try natural colours? - if carotenoids get through, I reckon anthocyanins (blueberry, blackberry, grape skin etc) and betalains (beetroot) should too. Blue, purple or pink yolks… maybe…
I’ve known people who kept chickens in the house full time, usually using a bird diaper designed for parrots. Why should psittacines have all the fun? 
The eggs you get from the store have already been washed in a mild, room temp soap solution. No worries there.
Mangetout: I think there might be a concentration threshold. So many of the carotenoids are yellow that it might take some potent reds and blues to overwhelm them. But, since it’s berry season right now, I’ll try feeding my hens just on strawberries and will report back. I’m sure they won’t mind 
I just got done reading “My Old Man and the Sea”, the tale of a father and son sailing around Cape Horn in a 25 foot sailboat. They had no fridge, but would coat freshly laid eggs in Vaseline and they would keep for a remarkably long time.
Do the parrots actually put up with that?? 
Those things are a hoot!
And, I’m grateful for your eduction, Pullet. This thread has been so interesting!
Yeah, some parrot owners are pretty crazy 
I haven’t seen the little diapers in person, but from the videos, it seems like the birds tolerate them well. Maybe I’ll meet more crazy parrot owners next year, when I’m in clinics 
Most pet owners just deal with the fact that their critter makes waste. I mean, even a big parrot really doesn’t make a whole lot of feces.
Sorry for bumping this old thread, but this got me interested:
Why do they say that? I usually eat egg nucleous with sugar raw, or fry the egg but the inside keeps raw.
And why shouldnt we have eggs in the fridge more than 5 weeks?
Chickens (and the rest of birds and reptiles) are presumed to be carrying salmonella. There are control programs in place, and some of the strains chickens carry are not the same ones that cause disease in humans, but the assumption is still there.
For that reason, general food health types recommend cooking eggs all the way through before eating them.
The 5 week throw out date is somewhat paranoid, but it’s a good rule of thumb in case the eggs were mishandled.
And it’s not a nucleolus, gawfunnit 
I just remembered another thing - my sister gets her kids to gather bags of dandelion flowers to feed to her chickens - I guess the yellow in the petals is probably a similar chemical to the orange in marigolds - as they’re related plants.
The eggs have a gloriously golden yellow yolk that looks great sunny side up, but cakes made with them look surreal - almost neon yellow.
I wanted to say that I have never enjoyed reading a thread posting as much as I did this one! Except for one deviant, the postings were courteous and funny, as well as highly informative.
I did not realize when my nephew asked how long eggs would last in the fridge, that I would obtain an hour of amusement and education. Thank you, Pullit, for your higher education!
I now know why I like using older eggs to make hard boiled ones.
But does an egg ever sink if it’s bad? What would be a case of a good egg floating?
In the book The Omnivore’s Dillema the author states that in areas where hens eat a seasonal diet, the yolk color (and protein levels) will vary according to what time of the year it is. There are old recipes that call for “spring eggs” or “winter eggs”.
I worked in an egg processing plant. Scalding hot water with agitation, scrubbers, and industrial soap. The candlers had to be careful not to get burnt. 180° F I do believe. The freshest eggs don’t look too appetizing.
That the egg is floating just means the gas “bubble” inside is large enough to give the egg positive buoyancy. For this to happen some of the liquid has to have evaporated through the shell. I’m not an expert at egg decay, but my educated guess is that the loss of moisture is more a function of time and heat than of decay. So a floating egg is merely one that is old and/or has been kept “warm”.
Whether there are ways eggs go bad that are faster than this process… well there I won’t hazard a guess.