Strange Egg!? Fresh egg spins like a hard boiled egg!

[gtaus]

Yesterday I got a green egg from my Ameraucana hen that has me puzzled. At first I thought it was one of my fake colored wooden eggs in the nest boxes. But no, I counted all my fake eggs and they were still all there. An easy way to tell if the egg is fresh or a wooden fake egg is just to spin it. Everyone knows that a fresh egg cannot spin like a solid fake wood egg - which spins like a top. So I gave this green egg a spin and it spun like a wooden egg, or a hard boiled egg, if you will. At this point, I'm thinking maybe it got frozen? So I took it inside the house and left it overnight. This morning, I gave it another spin test. It spun like a hard boiled egg, like it was a solid fake egg, or whatever. I decided to crack the egg, which it did, and the egg looks normal. The only interesting thing I noticed was that the egg shell was extra heavy duty - maybe about 150% a normal egg shell thickness. The egg weighed in at 65 grams, or XL egg.

Anyway, I made it into an egg, ham and cheese sandwich on an onion bagel for breakfast this morning. The egg tasted just fine. Just curious as to why the egg shell was so thick and that the egg would spin like it was hard boiled. First time I have ever seen this happen. Two years with laying hens, thousands of eggs, first time I have seen this strange egg. Any ideas? Thanks.

 

[Sally PB]

I'm curious too!

 

[aart]

Not sure....as I have never had any luck with spinning eggs(to check for freezing).
Even practiced with hard boiled and fresh, just couldn't get it to work.

 

[gtaus]

Not sure....as I have never had any luck with spinning eggs(to check for freezing).
Even practiced with hard boiled and fresh, just couldn't get it to work.

When I was a very young kid, I went to a community picnic and they had an egg toss competition. The participants get further and further away from each other with each successful toss. It's always fun, back then anyway, to see the eggs crack all over a person when someone tries to catch the egg as the eggs are lobbed through the air. Of course, the winning team had cheated and used a hard boiled egg whereas everyone else was using fresh eggs.

Since you can't visually tell the difference between a fresh egg and a hard boiled egg, the question was asked how did you know you had the hard boiled egg. The eggs were not marked. So a guy showed us kids that if you lay a fresh egg on its side and try to spin it, it won't spin hardly at all. This is because the fresh egg white and yolk inside prevent it from spinning. If you take a hard boiled egg, and spin it on its side, it spins like a top because the egg white and yolk have become a solid.

A frozen egg is like a hard boiled egg and will also spin like a top. However, as I mentioned, I took my "strange" egg inside the house and left it overnight on the counter. A frozen egg would have melted inside and you would not be able to spin it. However, this egg I got still spun like a top, even though it was a fresh egg. After having laying hens for 2 years now, and after gathering thousands of eggs, this is the first time I have seen a fresh egg spin like a hard boiled egg.

BTW, in the winter, I have to check the nest boxes about three times per day in an effort to gather up the egg(s) before they freeze. A completely frozen egg will most likely crack the egg shell, so we have to put them in a separate container and eat them in the next day or so. A partially frozen egg will sometimes spin like a top, depending on how much it is frozen. I find that a frozen egg has a different texture when cooked. So if I gather up a frozen, or partially frozen egg that spins, I put them aside for our own use only. Dear Wife sells our excess eggs, but we don't sell the eggs that were frozen in the nest box. So I have put the spin on hundreds of eggs during the winter as a test to ensure that a frozen egg is not sold to someone else.

 

[aart]

Yes, I understand the concept....just never been able to reproduce it.
Have you....using hard boiled and fresh eggs?

 

[gtaus]

Yes, I understand the concept....just never been able to reproduce it.
Have you....using hard boiled and fresh eggs?

Yes, all the time. A hard boiled egg will spin, the fresh egg will not.

 

[aart]

Yes, all the time. A hard boiled egg will spin, the fresh egg will not.

OK, just tried it again.
HB spun easier and faster and longer than fresh egg.
Thinking before that I only tried with eggs I thought were frozen.