Eggs are suppposed to be tapered on one end. I used to raise eggs, well, layers anyway, and I know my eggs. Store-bought eggs used to be definitely tapered too, but I’ve noticed lately (in the last 20-30 yrs) that with many of the eggs in a dozen it’s hard to tell which end came out first. Go look for yourself. I notice this because if you poke a little hole in the rounded end of an egg it won’t break when you boil it.
Any egg farmers out there? What do they do in egg factories that would cause eggs to be rounded on both ends?
I’m perplexed, and tired of cracked eggs. And curious.
I am seeking opinions, not venting. So this doesn’t belong in MPSIMS.
Peace,
mangeorge
Well, I just checked and what you said is true at our house. My WAG is that eggs now come from factory farms where the hens are in stacked up cages and the eggs are delivered by gravity to collection places at the bottom of the stack. I suppose some particular variety of hen, Ostra White, Rhode Island Red, or whatever has been found to do best under these living conditions and that variety produces eggs that are more uniformly oval.
I just checked my fridge and mine are tapered.
There’s a definite top and bottom although, admittedly, it isn’t *too *distinct.
Mine have a definite taper. And they have for as long as I can recall. Maybe it’s a location thing.
OKC, OK
Mine are tapered.
Mine are tapered.
Mine are tapered. Have you had your eyes checked lately 
. However I swear that the shells are not as strong as they used to be 30 years ago.
Mine are also tapered, although you really have to be looking for it. I also believe that the shells are thinner than they used to be. When we lived on the farm, my grandparents lived next door to us and they had a chicken house, but I was to young to care about the eggs. They just appeared, Mom cooked them and I ate them.
Chickens bored me, except when Grandma would grab a hatchet, stick it in a flat tree stump that was next to the chicken house, and then capture a chicken that looked good to her and proceed to behead it. I saw it so many times that it became common, but it always fascinated me. I had mixed emotions about the whole thing. But I have once more digressed, it seems.
I get these “land-o-lakes” eggs. (I think that’s what they are). They come in the plastic containers at the grocery store.
They’re “free range” or “all natural” or some buzzwords. Regardless, they are noticeably stronger-shelled than the ubiquitous cardboard-cased grocery store egg. When I first started buying them, I’d give them my normal tap on the side of the pan which would split a normal egg, and it would barely crack it.
They also taste better, look better, and stand up more. They’re also at least a dollar more per dozen. I figure it works out to about 15 bucks a year. I’ve had real fresh eggs from a farm and these land-o-lake eggs are somewhere in between those and a grocery store egg.
As to taper – I don’t know. Maybe we’re raising chickens with looser buttholes now.
The egg comes out the butthole, right?
Must be something about the way they raise battery chickens. My hens lay tapered eggs.
Trunk: a chicken has an all-purpose exit. Eggs, poop, all-one! All-one!
I looked, because I have never noticed any that weren’t. Mine are tapered.
Mine are pretty obviously tapered.
I think you mean “Egg-land’s Best.” “Land-o-Lakes” is butter! Unless those are some very special eggs, kind of like
here (the one titled “Bacon Egg”–it is cartoon-style animal lovin’, just to warn).
Slight hijack: My great aunt used to have a job at an egg packing plant - she “candled” eggs…they would go buy on a kind of conveyer belt with a light underneath it and she would pull out the eggs that had been fertilized and had baby chicks in them so you wouldn’t freak out at home when you cracked it open and a chicken fetus would plop out on the skillet.
I was a little kid when I went to see her at work once, and thought the whole process was really cool. Don’t know if they do that now, what with there being little chance of these chickens at egg farms “doing the nasty” with any Roosters.
Land-O-Lakes Cage-Free All Natural Eggy Wegs
That bacon-n-eggs link was funny.
Dilute! Dilute! OK!
Sorry to continue the hijack, but you’re a bit mistaken on the purpose of candling eggs, at least why it’s done these days. None of the eggs would be fertilized - on an egg-producing farm there would not be any roosters available, thus there’s no way any of the eggs could be fertilized (not to mention the fact that most of the time the hens are caged, so there’s not much socializing going on). Candling is done to find eggs with weak shells and blood spots in eggs. Sometimes, when the egg is formed inside the hen, a bit of blood is included. It’s not something you’d want to see with your breakfast, so they’re pulled out.
I used to work on a poultry farm, and did a bit of candling myself.
Thanks for the info! As mentioned, it was a l o n g time ago, I was all of about 5 or 6 but still vividly recall where she sat and seeing all the eggs. Most likely the story of chicken fetus plopping on the skillet was for the benefit of one very young city slicker who would believe anything.
Thanks for carlifying…or should I say, thanks for candling my story!
Sorry to continue the hijack yet again. But I used to work in an institutional kitchen, we would get the 180ct cases of eggs. Fertilized eggs are rare, but I’ve seen at least 5 of them, out of maybe 3-400 cases I went through in my time there.
Yes, I know, the “my situation renders your generalization invalid” falacy.
I used to candle eggs to check development. You don’t want to crack them open too soon or crack one open that’s not developing - it might have an infection and be rotten. That smells so bad you won’t make that mistake again.