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I regularly purchase fresh chicken eggs from a small farm located inside Richmond, Virginia city limits, about three miles from the outdoor market where they are sold. These farmers are diligent and I believe the eggs are extremely fresh, gathered less than a week before sale, kept at room temperature and handled with care. About 25% of all chicken eggs from this farm have the yolk already broken when I crack them open. (Their duck eggs have no such problem.) It's not my cracking technique because eggs from other local farms have intact yolks. Sometimes the broken yolk appears to have been attached to the inside of the shell, so that I cannot get all the yolk out into my frying pan. Now, the farm has a rooster and some of the eggs are clearly fertile; they have a red spot in the yolk. Could the broken yolks be in fact embryos, where the red spot simply is not visible?

The page Why do yolks break so easily (sometimes)? is related to this, but does not seem to answer the question about the rooster's role in broken yolks. That page does say that stress on the hen causes broken yolks; is a rooster's amorous activity sufficient to cause that level of stress?

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    Dear all, please note that this question is very strictly about the rooster-yolk membrane relationship. Any other reasons for breaking yolks should go in the linked question, cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/6793. They do not belong as answers under this question, nor as comments here. Also, anybody who wants to know why yolks break is probably much better served by reading the other question. To avoid closing as a duplicate, we have to keep this one really narrow, centered only on that specific hypothesis.
    – rumtscho ♦
    Sep 30, 2021 at 18:25
  • @rumtscho in that case, it seems off-topic for SA, and belongs on some other SE, maybe one that covers farming.
    – FuzzyChef
    Oct 1, 2021 at 18:17
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    I’m voting to close this question because it's off-topic for SA
    – FuzzyChef
    Oct 1, 2021 at 18:17
  • I'm just a newcomer, but an argument in favor of keeping it might be: I am not a farmer, I am interested in cooking. Part of cooking is getting proper ingredients. Is the quest for good ingredients off the topic of Seasoned Advice? The linked question seems to be cooks who might get their eggs from all over, even battery eggs, whereas I get my eggs only from local farmers. Maybe I should post a question: "How can the advice in the linked question be fine-tuned for a cook who gets the eggs exclusively from local farmers?"
    – Jacob Wegelin
    Oct 1, 2021 at 19:35
  • Jacob: that question would certainly be more likely to attract an answer than one about roosters.
    – FuzzyChef
    Oct 1, 2021 at 23:52

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One factor that can cause easily broken egg yolks is that the hens have a lack of protein in their diet.

"the farm has a rooster and some of the eggs are clearly fertile; they have a red spot in the yolk"

This is a misconception (no pun intended), because all eggs, fertilized or not, contain tiny blood vessels that anchor the yolk inside the egg. It's just that most are unnoticeable.

"Could the broken yolks be in fact embryos, where the red spot simply is not visible?"

No, by reason that the yolk is what becomes the chicken, so it's not possible that a broken yolk is also a chicken.

"related to this, but does not seem to answer the question about the rooster's role in broken yolks"

This is because of the assumption that the rooster does have a role in the broken yolks, which it doesn't.

"Sometimes the broken yolk appears to have been attached to the inside of the shell"

This is caused by the egg sitting too long in the same position so the yolk naturally migrates.

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    Some of this is simply untrue - blood vessels in eggs are totally produced by the developing embryo, and are not used for holding the yolk in place - that's called the chalaza. The yolk doesn't become the chick - it's food source for the chick. The chick comes from the cells in the blastoderm which is part of the vitelline membrane.
    – bob1
    Dec 18, 2021 at 20:37
  • aahhh, so it is true that the yolk is not the embryo as mentioned in the OP. thank you for the correction. however i disagree regarding the blood spots being "totally produced" by developing embryo, otherwise farmed eggs where the chickens never see a rooster would never have red spots, which they sometime do.
    – Mr Shane
    Dec 18, 2021 at 20:59
  • The OP doesn't say yolk is embryo, though there is a stage of development before the production of red blood cells where the embryo is a white sheet of cells on the vitelline membrane. I didn't say blood spots - I said blood vessels produced by the embryo. The red bits in an unfertilized egg are actually parts of what's basically the endometrium of the chicken - small bits of the lining of the oviduct.
    – bob1
    Dec 19, 2021 at 9:25
  • If you read the final sentence of the first paragraph, the OP asked if it was.
    – Mr Shane
    Dec 19, 2021 at 10:31
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    @bob1 perhaps you could use your extensive knowledge to provide an answer directly to the one who is asking questions.
    – Mr Shane
    Dec 19, 2021 at 10:54

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