Box of 30 Eggs Has 29 Double Yolks

If it is real, it's about genetics more than statistics - somebody has a mutant chicken :)

I once bought a dozen eggs, four of which had double yolks. I've never had another since, though. I blame the Margaret Atwoodesque nature of chicken farming on this one.

Looking at comments and then around, apparently it's not all that unusual. I particularly like this example, great for a party tray:

http://www.seriouseats.com/2009/04/one-dozen-trader-joes-eggs-each-with-a-double-yolk.html

You can buy cartons of ONLY double yolks. It's easy to see when you candle them, and most young chickens lay them way more often then 1/1000 in jumbo sized eggs, so much so that the egg factories can make them a special item (most just toss them away).

I assume the 1/1000 figure applies to a randomly selected egg. Seeing as all the eggs come from a single source, they would not be a representative sample of all eggs, so it's a little misleading to multiply the odds by a factor of 29. Perhaps the chicken/s they came from had a condition that predisposed them to producing double yolkers. Or perhaps somebody intentionally selected the very largest eggs for the video (particularly large eggs are often double yolkers).

Still impressive.

Someone should find out what they are feeding the hens at that particular farm.

When I was a kid I worked at the fast food place with the scottish name.
I remember one time, 3 or 4 of those 30 egg trays being full of double yolk eggs. How many zero's is that?

I once had a full dozen double-yolks. I emailed the company Grayridge Farms in Ontario, Canada. The representative said it had something to do with the timing of the egg lay. I think (this was a couple of years ago) she said early in the fertile cycle = double-yolk?! I too thought genetic mutations caused by hormone additives was the cause; however, I was informed that I had simply missed out on double the protein (I had thrown them all out).

I have a chicken that lays HUGE eggs. Biggest chicken eggs I've ever seen. They have double yolks (i thought they might be triple) and you can't close an egg box over them. But before I had chickens I once bought a dozen eggs, all of which had double yolks. I figured who ever packed them was playing a practical joke.

I help out at a friend's free range, organic chicken farm, packing their eggs. They have several flocks (each with its own maremma guard dog) and each time they get a batch of 500 new chicks, these will form their own new flock, so each flock has hens of the same age. Some young hens go through a phase, when they start laying, and have huge eggs with double yolks. They settle down later to normal single yolk eggs. This means many hens in one flock could be going through the double yolk stage at the same time. The eggs are sorted according to weight, so these heavy ones would end up packaged together. They don't throw away the double yolkers. Breeders DO throw them away, as they won't be viable for chicks. My friend's farm is certified organic, and the hens definitely only get organic grain with lots of grass and other plant stuff in the paddocks, so it's not due to diet.

Yeah, double yolks. But can I just say ewww, for sticking her finger in her mouth to pick at her teeth first? I believe there is some risk of salmonella when handling eggs, is there not?

I have seen a double yolk egg, in a chicken farm near my house. It was abnormal and I don't think it would hatch a baby chicken.

Where I live, you can buy double-yolk eggs at the grocery store, in specially labelled cartons.

I agree with Jessss that the odds are misleading. They're from the same source so it's hardly random.

We had a pack of 30 eggs once where I think all of them had double yolks (or at least very close to all) - it was about 15 years ago and we haven't had it since. We bought them at a local grocer which was not our usual custom - we generally pick eggs up from the supermarket. Quite surprised at first - but then we proceeded to use them like normal eggs. I guess my family is not that excitable!

I actually had this happen to me in 1993. I had 11 double yolks in a dozen eggs. My brother laughed and told me of an old wives tale that said I was pregnant. I had just gotten married two months before. You guessed it, 2 weeks later the test came back positive. That is the only time it has happened to me.

I love double-yolk eggs! In Toronto we used to be able to buy cartons of eggs specifically labeled as double-yolk eggs. I guess with all that crap about cholesterol and all they stopped doing it. Boo!

Although the circumstances that lead to double-yolk eggs may not yet have been investigated, because of the way that eggs are handled, these more than likely came from a fairly close group of chickens living under the same conditions in the same location. In fact, they are likely close cousins or even sisters. I expect that whatever conditions or unusual occurrence that led to one hen laying a few double-yolk eggs caused a cluster of hens to do so. If the pallets surrounding this one from the egg-gathering process could be found, they probably also contain large numbers of double-yolk eggs.