Injecting Eggs Without Breaking Shell - Is it Possible?

[nicholas82]

Guys, i'm a noob in this area. I would like to know whether it is possible to inject fluid into an egg without breaking the shell, probably using a syringe? A real thin needle perhaps? 18 gauge? Anybody care to shed some light on this? I really need the info. Thanks in advance.

 

[Cuban Longtails]

Hatcherys and breeders will do injections during Easter to dye the chicks, but you do it at a certain time during the development of the egg. I think they seal the hole with wax. I watched a vid of hatchery chicks and when the big machine did the injections the shell always cracked. The babies were okay though, because they were about to hatch.

 

[nicholas82]

I was thinking of injecting a raw egg. I was wondering whether it will pose any hygiene or health risk if there were to be a hole created by the injection, and then sealed back with wax. Can it stilll retain its freshness then? As food i mean.

 

[bantymum]

Forgive me for asking but what are you planning to inject into the egg???

 

[CovenantCreek]

I have heard of it being possible to inject liquid into eggs, but the hole has to be sealed with wax to prevent the content from seeping out and air seeping in. The context it was in was for breeders to be able to "mark" the chicks of certain parents to know which was which at hatching.

Why would you want to do it to an egg you plan on eating? (if you plan on someone else eating it, the injection site will be hard to hide so they'll know it's been tampered with)

 

[arlee453]

Ummmm......sounds fishy to me....

What would you possibly want to inject into an egg for eating that you just wouldn't add when you went to cook it, unless it was for nefarious purposes?

Forgive my suspicious nature - too much reading over at crime library...

And it'd be really obvious anyway...

 

[nicholas82]

Ok, firstly, forgive me for not stating my intentions earlier. It's actually for an assignment i have whereby i have to market eggs to a certain niche market. The group i am involved in suggested to market herbs and spice flavoured eggs where, example, in a carton of ten eggs, we market 5 different herb/spice flavour eggs.

This assignment is to be presented as a marketing plan by my group to a group of advertising industry professionals. While we don't really have to come up with the final product, which is the flavoured eggs themselves, we have to justify every step that we take; cost, hygiene, etc. I really want to salvage this idea, cause it seems to me now that its almost impossible to put flavour into the eggs without actually puncturing a hole into the egg and risking freshness. How about the 'marinade' technique where u put the raw eggs in say cinnamon water/oil?

And no, i wasn't planning to inject cyanide or to poison my wife. Thanks for all the replies so far, your help is very much appreciated!

Nick

 

[arlee453]

Whew... I'm relieved!

I know you can get onion flavored eggs if you chickens get into onions.....

not sure if a maranade would work, but eggs are porous and do pull in oxygen so might be worth a try.

I'm also not sure if it would effect the freshness of the egg...thinking out loud here - if you are maranading then any bacteria on the outside of the egg shell would also be potentially pulled into the egg with the maranade.

I think you'd have to start with 100% sterile and clean eggs, and then once the 'bloom' is washed off in the sterilizing process the egg would be very suceptable to bacteria entering the egg after the maranade process was completed....

Personally I think there are too many production and sterility problems to over come to make it cost effective, when you could just crack the eggs and sell them like 'egg beaters' with flavors in them...

 

[opihiman911]

I would say instead of injecting it, what about supplementing its feed with flavoring. As someone said you can get onion smelling eggs if your chickens get into onions. I can confirm that. I was cleaning my garden and threw a bunch of overgrown green onions into my coop, a couple days later I swear I could smell green onion in my scrambled eggs.
So what about feeding them things they will eat normally like green onion, garlic, basil, oregno, tyme, mint leaves, chili peppers. Or you could try adding extracts to their feed like ground cinnamon, pepermint extract, garlic powder, chili powder??
If you were to try injecting them I would try using a diabetic needle, they are small like a 22-24 guage, short and ultra sharp. Instead of stabbing the egg, I would try using it like a drill and twist it to bore a small hole in the shell.
Good luck

Aloha,
Cory

 

[silkiechicken]

You can add and remove 1-2 cc's of liquid to an egg using a 18 gage needle, but yes it does breach sterility and probably wouldn't work. If you have problems with shells being too thin, a patch of electrical tape on the desired injection spot prevents it from cracking. Then use more electrical tape to seal. However for market products... might not work so well. Feeding hens lots of herbs may make a difference with some, but is probably not cost effective in comparison to the amount you would add to the egg during cooking. As for marinating eggs, some may get in like food coloring on dyed easter eggs, but as with the bloom issue, would probably adversely affect storage life. Interesting marketing idea though. How bout like omlet in a carton stuff?