I read somewhere once that hens tend to lay smaller eggs at first then gradually move up as they mature. As in, maybe the hens now laying Jumbos/Extra Larges were laying Large eggs six months ago and maybe mediums a year earlier. What I’m wondering, though, is if the yolk and white increase proportionately? Like (I’ve never attempted to measure it) suppose a medium sized egg was 40% yolk/60% white by volume. Is the later extra large egg also 40/60? Or, maybe, you need a yolk of X size to successfully grow a properly formed chick, and thus the yolk stays at that size while the white increases in proportion to the space inside the shell, and thus the extra large egg might break down to 35%/65%? Thus maybe if your goal is to produce meringues, it would make more sense to buy the larger eggs vs. more of the smaller sized ones?
Also, just curiosity, is the yolk/white breakdown similar across all species? Do you get just as much yolk proportionately from a hummingbird egg as from an ostrich egg?
Interesting you ask because I was thinking about starting a thread to ask if people noticed larger yolks recently. I think the yolks of large white eggs are noticeably larger now. ‘Large Whites’ have had the best prices and availability since COVID started and the yolks seem to have grown in that time. During this period new regulations for chicken and egg farming began, I don’t know what different ones there are in each state but I think any sizable egg farm would want to comply with as many of the state regs as possible so as not to close off part of their potential market.
It’s not that simple to determine though, the size of yolks is not consistent in sizes of eggs, and the eggs are sized within a range, so it could be I’m getting the smallest large eggs with the same size yolks they always had, but I’m pretty sure breed, diet, and other conditions do affect the yolk size.
I buy jumbo eggs for our dogs (we eat the eggs our hens lay). The last few dozen have had insane numbers of double yolks, actually freaking me out a bit.
We had one hen that produced eggs with extremely viscous albumin, no idea why.
I’ve never opened those kinds of eggs. But I’ve regularly worked with duck, goose, and quail eggs.
Quail eggs appear to have a similar yolk to white ratio as the typical chicken egg. Goose yolks are maybe a bit bigger. Duck eggs, though, consistently have a noticeably outsized yolk. It’s one of their more distinctive features (in addition to being delicious).
My brother kept ducks when he was a kid, and one was a pretty consistent layer – Henry Bibby. Yeah, “he” turned out to be a “she.” She was a Muscovy rescue from a daycare and wasn’t as easy to identify as his Pekins. But her eggs did have large yolks.
Very interesting! I think I have only cracked open two double yolked eggs in my entire life. But that is probably because 99% of the time I buy large eggs, because that is pretty much all my inherited recipes call for.
For that matter, I’d estimate large/XL eggs make up at least 90% of the cartons of eggs I’ve seen offered at stores, with the remainders mostly jumbos. Medium eggs are vanishingly rate, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen small eggs at a grocery. Maybe those all get turned into liquid eggs? Or they get turned into powdered eggs or other items that contained processed eggs.
And that’s one reason why some bakers prefer to use duck eggs. I used to live in a town that had a farmer’s market vendor that sold them; they’re about 1 1/2 times the size of a large chicken egg, and the shells are rubbery and challenging to crack if you don’t know this.
Pullet eggs, those laid by young chickens, are quite small and not often sold commercially. IDK if, for instance, geese or quail lay bigger eggs as the bird ages, but I do know that some “first eggs” don’t have a complete shell.
Good question! No idea. I hope this is not a hijack, but I would like to know what the whites and the yolks are for in the eggs, and this seems the right place to ask. I guess that the yolk has more fat and cholesterol (and water) while the whites have more protein (and water), but why are they separated like this, evolutionary speaking? How does a developing chick use what part of the egg and why? And I hope it is not a hijack because if there is a reason for that we might get an idea of what the ratio boundaries between yolks and whites are. Just like the form of an egg is quite optimal (try holding an egg between your index and thumb on the pointy and the round sides and squeeze hard, let’s see if you can break it) I guess the interior is quite optimized too. I would not be surprised if the ratio boundaries where relatively narrow, but the reason could be interesting.
Because the embryo develops in the yolk, this is probably what it needs to grow into a baby chick, and then it absorbs the protein-rich white right before it hatches.
I recently learned that the blood spot that’s sometimes on an egg yolk is not from the chick, but is part of the process where the yolk detaches from the oviduct and gets coated with the albumin. This can also occur in unfertilized eggs.
I believe the yolk itself is higher in fat than a chicken’s egg, in addition to being bigger both in absolute size and in proportion to the white.
Leads to richer flavor.
Yes, this, exactly. It just feels more luxurious in the mouth. You don’t really perceive a difference if the egg is a secondary component in the recipe (like in baking), but try making something egg-forward, like deviled eggs, and you’ll definitely notice.
And then there are balut eggs, duck eggs where the embrio is well developed. I have never tasted one, don’t know whether they can be found in Europe at all, and they do not look really inviting, but the people who eat them say they are excellent. Ah, well…
So apparently the answer is that the ratio varies quite a bit, with birds that develop more precociously having larger yolks, including waterfowl.
It can range from 15 to 62% yolk at the extremes depending on the species. Those who get/require more parental aid after hatching (altricial) have less yolk and those more independent after birth (prococial) more yolk.
