TO the OP:
It's probably pretty clear by now that common, store-bought eggs are not "hatching eggs." They are specifically manufactured to be unfertilized, in fact.
This has to do with a particular fear in the USA that an egg might have a chick in it. It isn't that people are stupid or blind to where their food comes from... zealous 'foodies' will get on that horse in a minute. Seriously, anyone over the age of 6 knows where eggs come from. They may not know HOW, but they know from whence.
Instead, we are dealing with a peculiar set of biases about purity, constant availability and the American Way of industrial production.
You really have to dig into the history of the agricultural business in this country to understand this.
But simply put, if you are going to both feed and profit from a hungry population of egg consumers, 365 days a year, you will soon find that it is unprofitable to keep hens together with roosters. Under that scheme, you cannot afford to feed, house and maintain birds which do not produce eggs... roosters, in other words.
To put it bluntly, these egg producers want to produce eggs, not indulge the love lives of chickens.
On the other hand, there ARE a very small number of producers, like Trader Joes, that fill a specialty niche in the market for fertilized eggs. These folks are cashing in on those of us who believe in the idea that "natural is better." To a small segment of the population, and an increasing number of immigrant groups, fertilized eggs are synonymous with health and vigor.
Never mind that there is little, if any difference in the egg itself, fertilized or not.
What matters is that these people are willing to pony up the extra cash for such eggs, keeping the smaller specialty egg producers in business.
The motto of these folks is, of course, "Dont panic - its organic!"
In the end, supermarket eggs of any kind are a business.
The specially bred egg-hens either live in battery cages in a building, producing infertile eggs from a carefully prepared rationed diet
- or -
crowded on floors in a building with a few males, producing (hopefully) fertilized eggs from a carefully prepared rationed diet.
(As far as I can determine - the eggs are not guaranteed to be fertile - only that they might be. 'Trader Joe' and others are actually "trading" on a fashionable ideal, as opposed to a reality.)
Remember, any selling of eggs to a mass market must profit on a large scale - we're talking thousands, if not millions, of eggs a year. This is the flaw in the "natural" production methods so many love to espouse. You can't meet the demands of the greater market with chickens running amok in field and fen. In the old days before industrial methods, would did find small producers with chickens, on small acreage lots. These guys would sell their eggs to jobbers, who collected and funneled them through many layers of distribution to the nearby cities.
But today, only at the most focused local level, like the farmers market or road side stand, will you see eggs produced for sale that way. That is changing slowly, and a few people make a living at it.
But I don't see that improving any time soon.
I recall my grandmother sold eggs in her area for years. She called it her "egg money" - and it was never much, to be honest.
