Friday, August 14, 2009


This is what greeted me when I cracked open an egg for breakfast. Over 50 years and I have never seen a double yolk. Fascinating. If it had been fertilized, would the chicks have survived? Would there actually been two? Seems the shell would have been unforgiving...

My next thought was, what's the folklore surrounding the double yolk. I discovered it depended on which folklore. Several cultures believed the double yolk meant pregnancy. (Definitely not me!) For another, it portended bad luck, for another good luck. Yet another, it meant a wedding and there was a reference to a death in the family.

For me, at least for breakfast, it meant good pancakes.

2 comments:

  1. funny, same thought occured to me... would two chicks actually hatch? Did yo ever find out?

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  2. Most of my search yielded a 'no.' www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=308091 is a story on why. The most interesting information was the record yolks for one egg is 9. Nine! Can you imagine?

    But in one location was in a literature search of research on this subject, there were cases of twin chicks surviving.

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