Trader Joes & Other Grocery Store Egg Hatching Club - Are you a Member

[gimmie birdies]

Fun news, I got eggs from a lady who had NN/frizzles. My hen mixed up the nest box and the eggs got wrecked. Then I bought eggs from the store, the store got their eggs from the woman who lives a couple hrs away. I looked her up to find out about her chickens. She said some eggs were NN so I might be able to still get my NN!

Horrible!!! my hen ate an egg and got goo on the other eggs!
I damp wiped the eggs, and will scrape later too, I put them in my homemade incubator.

up date:
So after being in the fridge for who knows how long, poo-ed on, yoke covered, damp cloth washed, still going...

This is one of my eggs due the 16th, (4 days along) 4/4 in that group, 4 due the 18th look to be coming along, and the ones due on the 20th are too early to tell.

 

[JMoriarty111012]

I saw this post last night and had to give it a try. I set 10 brown eggs from Jeremiah Cunningham soy-free eggs that I purchased from Whole Foods today. I cracked 2 open to check for fertility. I'm almost certain one had an embryo already growing. What do you guys think?

 

[RobG7aChattTN]

I saw this post last night and had to give it a try. I set 10 brown eggs from Jeremiah Cunningham soy-free eggs that I purchased from Whole Foods today. I cracked 2 open to check for fertility. I'm almost certain one had an embryo already growing. What do you guys think?

That little dark chunk is called a "meat spot" and actually is part of the hen...not the embryo. The difference between a fertile and an infertile egg is that the infertile egg has a white spot on the yolk and the fertile egg has a white ring...like a little white Cheerio (but really just the size of a pencil-wide circle drawn around the white spot of the infertile egg. It doesn't look like much but that's the embryo. It has a very long way to go to actually look like something developing.

 

[JMoriarty111012]

That little dark chunk is called a "meat spot" and actually is part of the hen...not the embryo. The difference between a fertile and an infertile egg is that the infertile egg has a white spot on the yolk and the fertile egg has a white ring...like a little white Cheerio (but really just the size of a pencil-wide circle drawn around the white spot of the infertile egg. It doesn't look like much but that's the embryo. It has a very long way to go to actually look like something developing.

Interesting (and kind of gross)! Okay, so neither of these eggs look fertile then. That kinda sucks but good to know. Hopefully something comes of it Thank you!

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I saw this post last night and had to give it a try. I set 10 brown eggs from Jeremiah Cunningham soy-free eggs that I purchased from Whole Foods today. I cracked 2 open to check for fertility. I'm almost certain one had an embryo already growing. What do you guys think?

Embryo doesn't look like that. It is tissue or blood from the oviduct. Just cook them up, doesn't matter.

Interesting (and kind of gross)! Okay, so neither of these eggs look fertile then. That kinda sucks but good to know. Hopefully something comes of it Thank you!

Were they marked as fertile?
Our TJ doesn't carry fertile eggs, WF does but they aren't fresh enough to incubate. They come from a farm in Wisconsin, then go to a distribution center in Chicago and then eventually to the stores in St. Louis. They are always at least 10 days old by the time they get here.

 

[JMoriarty111012]

Embryo doesn't look like that. It is tissue or blood from the oviduct. Just cook them up, doesn't matter.


Were they marked as fertile?
Our TJ doesn't carry fertile eggs, WF does but they aren't fresh enough to incubate. They come from a farm in Wisconsin, then go to a distribution center in Chicago and then eventually to the stores in St. Louis. They are always at least 10 days old by the time they get here.

No, they weren't marked as fertile. I looked for some, but they didn't have any. Shopping with an overtired 4 year old and a newborn doesn't lend itself well to going to multiple stores to look for them. I figured, what the heck, for a few bucks, it's worth a shot.

 

[Mak24456]

The lack of fertile grocery store eggs here was actually unexpected for me - we used to live in France and ALL the store eggs we got were fertile. The cartons didn't mention it or anything, it was just a normal thing. (most people were probably unaware of it though

)
Moving back to the US I didn't expect them to be so uncommon, shows what the American food industry is compared to Europe!

 

[ChickenCanoe]

No, they weren't marked as fertile. I looked for some, but they didn't have any. Shopping with an overtired 4 year old and a newborn doesn't lend itself well to going to multiple stores to look for them. I figured, what the heck, for a few bucks, it's worth a shot.

If the carton isn't marked fertile, to the best of my knowledge, they don't have roosters running with them. Frequently they are caged.

 

[JMoriarty111012]

If the carton isn't marked fertile, to the best of my knowledge, they don't have roosters running with them. Frequently they are caged.

I know these are pasture raised but I don't know if roosters are kept with them or not. Here's to hoping!

 

[Mak24456]

I know these are pasture raised but I don't know if roosters are kept with them or not. Here's to hoping!

I also bought some pasture raised eggs from whole foods, vital farms brand, and even though they were for eating, each time they were cracked open I checked for fertility. All infertile. I just don't think anybody includes roosters in their egg lines, pasture raised or otherwise.