Anyway, one of my chickens had laid a wow-that-must-have-hurt mutant-sized egg a few days prior to Danni's visit, which I said I would save for her to witness.
When you're mildly obsessed with chickens and eggs, seeing is not believing; an egg must be weighed to measure its true magnificence. So Danni packed her official postal scale in her suitcase. Good thing she checked her bag. How does one explain a postal scale to a TSA agent?
At the official weigh-in, the mutant egg came in at a whopping 3.0 ounces.
For a little perspective, here we have a Grade A Large, weighing in at 2.2 ounces.
Nerd that I am, I did a little research to find out how my mutant egg measures up.
Here is the official U.S. Department of Agriculture standard for shell egg weight classes:
Allow me to summarize.
1. At 3.0 ounces, my mutant egg is was 20% heavier than a USDA Jumbo. We finally did eat it and, yes, it was a double yolker.
2. The USDA has a sense of humor. "Peewee"?
LOL!! Love it-guess I'm a blogger-cause I live for this kinda entertainment!!
ReplyDeleteI KNEW it was a double yolker!
ReplyDeleteI think you need one of those scales at your house. What a handy egg measuring gadget that is!
Now we really need to know the weight of yolks vs. the weight of egg whites. Plus factor in that your girls may be getting different nutrients in the soil that may cause their eggshells to be just a little thicker than store-bought eggs.
ReplyDeleteNerd possibilities abound.
Well that's one hell of an egg. All I can say for the poor girl who laid it is Ouch!
ReplyDeleteI've always wondered about the size of eggs. What causes eggs to be different sizes in the first place, for instance? Do chickens experience labor pains when they lay eggs, I wonder? What does the actual 'grading' of eggs mean? Is it strictly weight/size, or do they consider the condition of the shell?
ReplyDeleteAnd most importantly, how does the variations in size affect recipes? What is the standard size egg, and how does one adjust a recipe for various sizes of eggs? This all makes my head hurt, and I need a really large cup of coffee right now...and just make my eggs scrambled this morning!
Was bacon served with that yummy egg? ;-)
ReplyDeleteI just want to know who sells a dozen peewee eggs. :)
ReplyDeleteGlad y'all had fun. :)
Magnifique!
ReplyDeleteYes, Danni is the queen of eggies and math - thanks for posting about it, I think I will get out the scale now, as (whichever one is finally laying) that daily 'egg' is in the peewee category...course it could be from a Banty hen. We are talking hummingbird sized. I cringe to think of that mutant coming out of any chicken! Wow!
ReplyDeleteSomebody asked: What causes eggs to be different size? Well the breed of chicken, the age of the chicken. Older hens lay bigger eggs less often. Chickens are like people...some sit in there a long time, others don't. Some really "labor" when they pass an egg and really make pushing huffing sounds. Others just pop them out and off they go. Some like to sit in their house others like to "stay out late". "Peewee" eggs I get from my banty girls. Some folks like peewee eggs for kids or sany's. Sometimes beginning hens lay a peewee and sometimes beginning hens lay double yokers until their system normalizes. Sometimes beginning hens their egg is like a rubber ball. Sometimes hens lay an egg that has alot of wrinkles. You see in the store you only get "perfect" eggs like hollywood. In real life eggs are a process and some are not beautiful! Store bought eggs are half rotten when you buy them. They have also been washed so the protective coating was lost right then and the egg started getting old right then. Hope this helps!
ReplyDeletePeewee size must be for the Bantam chicken eggs that would probably take about 15 to make a decent size omelet. :)
ReplyDeleteI'm going to reclaim the garage sale postal scale from work. Never thought of weighing fresh eggs that way. Usually we get one ooh that had to hurt egg from one chicken every other week.
ReplyDeleteThe pee-wee's are the only ones laying at my house right now...and I gotta say they make the perfect size hard-boiled eggs!
ReplyDeleteReally cute post! Glad the weigh-in was possible! We had some "ugly eggs" from our friend who was providing us with eggs last year, and a few were enormous also. I posted about it, and showed the omelet that resulted.
ReplyDelete:-)
4-H poultry project kids have to learn this table and be able to grade eggs both in the shell and broken out. Store-bought eggs are not really "rotten," they are aged, the elasticity of the yolk and white have started to decline as the egg is in storage. If you keep eggs in the refrigerator for many months, they never get rotten, they just dry out. Even so, raising your own chickens and getting truly fresh eggs is one of the great joys of life, even though it's a great deal more work (to be sure the chickens are safe) and a bit more costly, than most people plan on. I love your chicken posts.
ReplyDeletePostal scales are very useful -- I don't have hens, but used mine for several summers to find out how big my largest beefsteak tomatoes really were! As for that egg, it was definitely one big ooooo-ah egg!
ReplyDeleteSeriously, what do we expect given that these chickens have eaten other birds?
ReplyDeleteI was confused by the column headings in the table of information. The first column of numbers made sense but then I finally figured out that the word "per" was in the wrong spot in the government document. I performed the math and saw that the second column of numbers is derived from the first by multiplying by 30 and then dividing by 16.
ReplyDeleteI believe the column heading should be: "Minimum Net weight per 30 dozen (pounds)"