Bluish patches or spots in cooked eggs?

[LadyHawk_2006]

My sister has a small flock and we get eggs from her, but recently we've been finding that after we cook the eggs there are bluish patches or spots all through the white. The first time it happened was with some eggs that I thought we might have just had longer than I thought, but then we just got some from her yesterday and the ones we cooked today are doing the same thing, both with boiling and frying. I do know that one of her hens has been extremely broody and making it hard to collect eggs every day, but I wanted opinions. Can we eat them? I hope my sister's chooks aren't sick because she absolutely adores them! Pix attached are the same plate. They all have some blue spots, but the one on the top is the worst.

Update before I even posted, by husband cooked a couple others and they were fine. Any ideas?

 

[NanaK]

I've never seen anything like that before.
Do they free range? Could they have eaten something that could do this? I don't know. I know certain things makes yolks more orange.

I wonder what type pan she cooked them in? I wonder if a certain cook surface could do this?
Sorry I'm not much help. Just points to ponder.

 

[LadyHawk_2006]

I've never seen anything like that before.
Do they free range? Could they have eaten something that could do this? I don't know. I know certain things makes yolks more orange.

I wonder what type pan she cooked them in? I wonder if a certain cook surface could do this?
Sorry I'm not much help. Just points to ponder.

They are in an outdoor enclosure, but not free range, though she feeds them a very varied diet. In addition to layer feed, she gives them fruits, veggies, seeds, insects, worms and grubs from her garden. Her chickens eat better than we do! She had a blueberry bush near their enclosure, and has been giving some to them recently, but they weren't ripe when we got that first batch of eggs that cooked blue. I boiled six and all of them looked off. The photos that I attached are of the six that my husband fried today in a pan we've been frying eggs in for years. After those eggs, he cooked another six in the same pan and they were fine. We're all baffled.

Like I said, one of her hens has been extremely broody for a while and has been making it hard for her to collect the eggs. She even steals the other girls' eggs and sits on them. Could that maybe do something to them? Someone she knows also has chickens, including roosters, so she gave her six fertilized eggs to give her chicken to hatch out and see if it helps.

 

[NanaK]

I caught one of my broody hens stealing eggs too. I wouldn't have believed it I hadn't caught her in the act. She had 2 eggs and she eased to the next nest box and somehow got the egg under her wing. I just laughed! They can be determined.

I was baffled about the blue eggs as I've never seen this. Did a quick google search and found this. Hope it helps and I learned something too!

It is a reaction between sulfur and iron. The same can occur with scrambled eggs. Over cooking and cooking at high temperature is considered a prime culprit. Cooking in iron reportedly increases the likelihood as it increases the available iron for the reaction.

https://cooking.stackexchange.com/q...ction between,available iron for the reaction.

 

[LadyHawk_2006]

Hmm... That's interesting. I did think about that, but we all hate overcooked eggs, so we under cook them, if anything. We were using a regular nonstick pan for the fried, and obviously the boiled eggs were not in contact with any metal. The first batch of eggs were almost a month old, unwashed on the counter top. What I don't know is the sulfur content of what the girls have been eating, so that is still a possibility.

My sister has definitely seen Blanche (the broody one) scooping the other girls' eggs in with her wings. She doesn't care, all eggs are her eggs now

 

[NanaK]

I use a non stick pan mostly but sometimes use cast iron. I have never noticed any. Strange, it mention high heat. We don't eat hard cooked eggs either but I still get the pan good and hot to scramble or fry. Maybe those eggs had a bit extra iron and sulpher than others. No real way to know. Or maybe something they were eating although I saw no reference to diet.

I wonder if you posted this in the Chicken Behaviors & Egg Laying Forum you'd get more response?

Hope you get it figured out.

 

[LadyHawk_2006]

I'll try that, thanks!