Are the eggs we buy at a store fertile?

No!

The letters are the “grading” system from the FDA.

If the eggs were fertile, you’d be eating baby chicks instead of yolks & whites.

I’m not sure what the letters are, but no, the eggs aren’t fertile. We used to have chickens but no rooster; the chickens still laid eggs.

Did you really think you were eating fertile eggs? Really?

@casheroo, actually had to explain this to a friend in elementary school (her dad was a scientist, too) and another in middle school, and yet another in high school. I must say, I was shocked they didn’t understand the concept of procreation. Later, I had to explain to one of the same friend’s that cow’s milk is not “stolen” from “baby cows” (her words in parenthesis)

The United States Department of Agriculture determines the standards for grading
eggs. The most common grades are AA and A, with B and Inedible less common. Eggs graded AA will have yolks and albumens that stand taller and firmer than those graded A. B-graded eggs have many problems with the shell or contents. Inedible grades have large blood spots. However, all grades have the same nutritional value.

No commercial eggs are not fertilized

See this site for grading system chart. it will not reproduce well here.

A chicken doesn’t need to be touched by a rooster in order to lay eggs. That’s why the eggs you buy at the grocery store are not fertile, as fertile ones are kept at the barn.

My mom used to buy fertile eggs (I guess back in the 90’s, in SF), as she said they taste better. I never noticed any difference, but I was slightly grossed out by the idea.

I know one thing for sure, they make me violently ill. The only eggs I can eat are the farm fresh ones. the old timers in Florida call them :yard eggs.”

Someone told me that by the time we get eggs from the store they are very old because of all the processing they go through first. I don’t know if it’s true or not, just that they make me very sick.

It is possible to buy fertile eggs at the store, but unless they specifically say they’re fertile, they’re almost certainly not.

Fertile means that the hen simply had access to a rooster who did his job – i.e., in a barnyard or something. (Most “regular” eggs come from factory-like enclosures with six hens to a tiny cage, whose feet are formed to the bars of the cage and have no room to turn around and a cauterized beak so they don’t peck and kill the other hens, so it’s unlikely that a rooster is going to get in there to give them some sweet lovin’.) It does not mean that you will see a little fluffy baby chick when you crack it open. (At most, it would have a small ‘bloody’ looking spot attached to the yolk.)

A lot of people buy them because it implies a happier life for the hen, who probably lived in a barnyard with a rooster and other hens, rather than in a factory.

They are more likely to be found at places like Whole Foods or farmers’ markets.

Okay, done editing. :)

In the UK we are working hard to cut consumption of non free range eggs, I’d say mostly our eggs are unfertilised.

I did however see a lifestyle show we have in Britain called river cottage where a chicken expert was demonstrating egg incubation, he said to make up the numbers he occasionally had used shop bought eggs to make up the numbers and they had hatched. So I guess the answer is, more often than you think.

Having read your question again, an egg from a chicken once laid can never be fertile. It can be fertilized though. ;-)

I’ve seen that little blood spot that Laureth is talking about in an egg from a supermarket occasionally. Now I get my eggs at a farmers market, but I haven’t noticed a greater frequency of fertile eggs. However, I have noticed an increase of double yolks!

@casheroo: I always assumed they weren’t fertile, until one of my cousins from a ranch said there are only special chickens that could make eggs without a male and the ones at the store were fertile.

Thanks for all the answers everyone!! All of your answers were pretty “egg“citing to read (sorry couldn’t hold it back lol).

@popo7676 Your cousin works on an asexual chicken ranch???

Here is a brief description on how eggs get fertilized. There are several other links here, but I couldn’t find anything about asexual chickens. I think maybe your cousin got your leg and decided to pullet, excuse the pun, ha ha!!

@scamp: No just a ranch with cows, horses, chickens and a bunch of other animals.

@fullOFuselessINFO I don’t think your first line was a very nice comment/question; welcome to Fluther…but please be nice?

[mod says] Personal attacks are not permitted.