Double yolk?

[kplchicken]

Does anyone know what causes a double yolk? My buff minorca layed one yesterday. Is she likely to lay them often?

 

[joanc]

Hi. I'm not sure why they lay double-yolkers but I get them every so often--about 1-2 per week out of 25 layers. Overachievers?lol
I get them mainly from my 2 white leghorns. Once in a while I get them from my 3 RIR. I like to think my girls are just happy.

 

[Scrambled Egg]

I sent eggs home with my mother at thanskgiving that my Dominiques had laid. The very largest one, I mean a real whopper!, was laid by Margaret. My mom called me yesterday all excited saying she was baking and had cracked Margaret's egg and it was double yoked! She was so excited that Margaret had blessed her with such a great egg! Yep, chickens are great

 

[arlee453]

What causes them the hen ovulating two ova instead of one - either at the same exact time, or very close together in time, so that both ova get enclosed in the egg shell together.

It's like fraternal twins - some women are prone to have more than one egg ripen at a time and they release both eggs at ovulation. If both are fertilized, you end up with fraternal twins. That's why twins run in families. A mother may pass the trait to ovulate multiple eggs to her daughters.

Fraternal twins do have a strong coorelation to family history, where as identical twins do not, because the tendency to ovulate multiple eggs can be passed down genetically. Identicals are just a fluke where a single egg is fertilized, then splits at some point into two babies.

Just like in humans, some hens have a genetic predisposition to lay double yolkers. For those running commercial egg farms, the general advice is to cull those hens and not to use them for breeding, since double yolks are not desired.

For those of us with home BYCs, double yolks are just fun to get from the girls!

 

[OHChick]

i have a chicken (i assume its just one) who consistently lays double yolkers. i get 3-4 a week. i always save those, don't sell them to my customers, because i love soft boiled eggs but i only like to eat the yolk.

so it works perfect for me. luckily my doubles are always such big eggs that the egg carton won't close, so i can easily tell before cracking them open.

enjoy the doubles!

 

[egglady]

A friend of mine has white Leghorns who just recently began to lay. She cracked 2 eggs into a bowl, and got 5 yolks!

She also got an egg within an egg - a small fully formed egg with a shell inside of a larger egg.

And then of course there are the occasional "rubber" eggs - those with a membrane but no shell . . .

 

[lyndatu]

I don't know the reason why hens produce double yolks, but I know there's nothing bad about it. Maybe they're just too happy.

 

[momoftwinsinwi]

Susan, thank you so much for your knowledge on "TWINS" and you are soooo right. I have identical twin boys....."no, they are not heriditery (probably butchered that spelling) but you are very right. The fact that I had identicals is a "fluke" and not heriditery....like everyone asks. Again, thanks for your very sound knowledge and on a funny note...I took an egg out of the hen house on turkey day morning that was by far the biggest egg I've ever seen in my life...said to mom..."That wasn't the rooster you heard crowing this morning...it was the hen that laid this egg!!!! LOL

 

[Barnyard Dawg]

The chickens reproductive system has not matured yet, normally you get them from young or chickens just starting to lay.