Horray!
Twins.
This happens sometimes but only with jumbo eggs. I betchya jumbo eggs come from jumbo chickens, or maybe older than regular chickens. Frankly, I don't know anything about chickens but they fascinate me.
Can you imagine having a jumbo chicken that pooped out, say, nine eggs and was sitting on them in her nest incubating them, then one fine morning ten little chicks appeared running all around? It'd be like defying the laws of mathematics.
Double yolk eggs counter the reasoning behind the adage, "Don't count yer chickens before they hatch," because you might end up with more than you figured. So next time somebody says that adage, and come to think of it they almost never do say it, then you can go, "Yeah, some of those eggs could be double-yolk and make twins!" Which would prove you're an incorrigible optimist doomed to disappointment.
I think there is some reason that double yolks don't make it to hatching. The chicks run out of room or something. I don't know why that would be the case, but it's what I've heard.
ReplyDeleteI get double yolks from my hens sometimes. When the hens start to lay their eggs are about half size and then they get bigger until they are full size... maybe it takes a few weeks. What full size means is different for every hen, usually determined by the breed of chicken she is. Whatever size is full size for the hen, the double yolked egg is noticeably bigger.
This year one of my new hens laid a double yolk egg for one of her first eggs so it seemed normal sized but had two perfect little yolks inside.
It's always sort of a happy "Hey, look at this!" sort of surprise. I'm not sure why, but it is.