I hope you all had a restful holiday weekend. It's been a while since I gave a chicken report, so I thought I'd take this time to tell you all about the giant eggs we've been getting. You can see from the top picture that these eggs look like dinosaur eggs in comparison to what our chickens typically lay. I was a little freaked the first time I found one. My first reaction..."yikes! That must hurt." I was amused to learn it contained two yolks, a.k.a double-yolkers. My husband, the ever vigilant and concerned chicken farmer, promptly researched this mystery. Turns out, it's not that uncommon. At the website poultryhelp, under "odd eggs," he found this: "Double yolkers appear when ovulation occurs too rapidly, or when one yolk somehow gets 'lost' and is joined by the next yolk. Double yolkers may be by a pullet whose productive cycle is not yet well synchronized." Translation: one of our chickens is still learning how to work her magic.Of course, my daughter was excited that we could possibly have twins, but it's very unlikely that a double-yolker would produce twin chicks. Apparently, there isn't enough room so they would likely fight each other, with one or both dying in the process. Ah, nature...you always have something new for me to learn.
Double-yolkers are said to bring good luck, so I consider myself one lucky girl. I hope you find a double-yolker some day too.