Chalazea

"What the heck is that?"

"Whats' that white stringy stuff." 

"There's a string in my yolk. is that normal?"

and my favorite response:

"No, your egg isn't starting to form a chick."

I get these types of questions all the time. Even from people that are long-time fresh market egg buyers. I'm talking about the Chalazea. It's a tiny string that you will see when an egg truly is farm fresh -  no more then 2 days old fresh.

The Chalazea holds the yolk to the shell when it is first formed in the chicken. As the days progress the chalazea disappears.  It does not indicate its any better or worse then a 5 day old egg. But, it does indicate that egg was just laid within the last couple of days.

These two photos were taken by me right before I had breakfast. The eggs were collected last night. Laid yesterday.  It's a phenomenon that many don't get to see, or even know about. Store bought eggs you'll never see this... Some farms that hold eggs till the greenmarket day might lose it by then.
Because it disappears so soon after they lay the egg. But, if you order eggs and its timed right, this is what you will see in some of my eggs.

It's perfectly normal.

Pretty cool, huh?


Here is a good link on Eggs 101 and what else you might see.

http://www.eggs.ca/eggs101/view/4/introduction-to-the-egg