Some of my eggs have small red spots in them. Has anyone else run across this? Are they safe to eat?

-- Lena Moffitt (persian86@go.com), September 15, 2000

Answers

Lena,

Do you have a rooster with your hens? One red spot probably means a fertile egg.(the embryo has begun to grow) They should be ok to eat if they don't look or smell bad otherwise.

-- Mona (jascamp@ipa.net), September 15, 2000.

The red spot is blood. It doesn't mean that the egg is fertile- they can be fertile with no spot, or infertile with a spot. The spot is not for the embryo, or part of the embryo, it is the hen's own blood. I have noticed that some hens tend to have a habit of laying blood spotted eggs, while others do not. They are safe to eat, but since I do not eat blood, I either throw the egg away, or scoop out the spot if it is little. I have bought farm eggs that have what looks like an embryo, and maybe I'm picky, but I like to scoop that out too.

-- Rebekah (daniel1@itss.net), September 15, 2000.

Rebekah is right, small blood spots does not mean the egg is fertile! We gave our rooster away some time ago when he got too mean and now only have hens and we sometimes get eggs with a tiny spot of b1lood in them. (for some reason, I kept getting those periods before my l spooky!) Anyway, we always use those eggs in cooking and they haven't killed us yet!

-- bwilliams (bjconthefarm@yahoo.com), September 15, 2000.

They're fine! We eat ours; fried, scrambled, or baked into goodies.

-- Leann Banta (thelionandlamb@hotmail.com), September 15, 2000.

Amen to the above. Don't worry, be happy! No problem with them at all. Have you ever noticed any blood spots in your steaks (or hamburger)? GL!

-- Brad (Homefixer@SacoRiver.net), September 15, 2000.

Thanks everyone. I was afraid I was going to have to get rid of them and start over.

-- Lena (persian86@go.com), September 16, 2000.

When I first raised chickens a few years ago I noticed the same red blood spots in the eggs. I called the county extension agent and he said it was from a lack of vitamin K. He said you can add it to the water or buy feed fortified with it. That did the trick.

-- haystacker (haystack@tscnet.com), September 17, 2000.

I had no idea that vitamin K deficiency was the cause. Thanks so much for that tidbit. We always just ate them too. Even get grocery store ones like that sometimes.

-- Alison Proteau (aproteau@istar.ca), September 19, 2000.

Fer God's Sake, why do you ponder about a speck of this or that?

-- Headlines (whichmakeyou@quiver.com), September 20, 2000.