broken yolks

[gailstpierre]

I have been selling my surplus eggs. A customer sent me a picture of an egg whose shell she broke open to fry up and the yolk was broken and watery. She said it was several eggs in that particular dozen (which means they came from different chickens as I sell eggs no more than 2 days old) that had this issue. Any ideas on what caused it and how to prevent it?

 

[azygous]

It's true older eggs have yolks that may not be firm. But storage temperature also affects the yolk quality. There are two things you can't control. One is low long it's been between the time an egg is laid and when you discover it and collect it. The other is how your customers store their eggs.

Many people don't refrigerate their eggs, including some of us egg peddlers. If eggs are subjected to hot temps, they can degrade quickly. If you are collecting eggs from locations other than a nest box, and if you don't collect from every location daily or if it's very hot out, eggs can have time to degrade.

 

[gailstpierre]

Thanks I live in Florida so we had a couple weeks of 100 + temperatures. I will put my eggs in the refrigerator as soon as I collect them now and tell my customer to refrigerate theirs. I only collect from nest boxes and I do that twice a day. It is 77 degrees in my house all the time. Refrigeration seems likely in that case. I can't thank you enough for replying with such good information so quickly.