Very yellow whites

[Tuppemor]

I just got chickens this spring and they are finally giving me some eggs. Not a whole lot, cause they're youngsters and winter is here with well below freezing temperatures and snow.

I have had blood spots and a few meat spots (ew!

) and was reassured by the forum that this is perfectly normal. Now I need some more reassurance.

I am of course used to thin-shelled commercial eggs with yellowish yolks and very clear whites - now I am getting thick-shelled (good girls!) eggs with more orange yolks, but the whites are very yellow. It it quite noticable when I separate whites and yolks to whip up the whites, so I thought I'd ask. They are very thick and whip up very nicely to pearly white foam, and boil just the same. It's just that they're quite a bit yellower than I'm used to when they're raw. I don't get too many eggs, so they're all used fresh (thanks to this forum I have no trouble peeling my hard boiled either).

Most yolks are still quite small, I'm guessing that's a pullet thing, that they'll get a bit bigger. Also, the shells are so hard I can drop them without even a crack, which is quite handy for clumsy me.

I dropped one egg on the ground outside three times before I got it in the house, cause I put it in my sweater pocket and played fetch with my dog..

The pullets that I know have started laying (may be more, I don't know who lays what) are:
Barred Rock
Light Brahma
BR/New Hampshire-mix

 

[gritsar]

The whites of really fresh eggs can be quite cloudy (yellowish). When a hen first lays an egg the air cell inside is full of carbon dioxide, which clouds the white. As the egg ages, the carbon dioxide escapes through the pores in the shell in exchange for oxygen. Once the oxygen level is higher than the carbon dioxide level, the white begins to clear.
Cloudy whites are a sign of really fresh eggs and are completely harmless.

 

[CamillaRules]

That's very interesting about the color of the whites. Is the fact that the eggs are very fresh also the reason they foam up when scrambling them? I don't think I'll EVER go back to store eggs again!

 

[Bunnylady]

My BIL had a restaurant, so he handled lots of commercial eggs. When he had to deal with the harder, yellower, "eggier" things my free-ranging hens produce, he could hardly recognise them as the same hen-fruit he was familiar with. I told him "it's because my chickens have a life!