Radioactive Ducks Eggs?! Kryptonite?! Do.Not.Want.

Hello :)

I have two ducks who were hatched on 4/8/19 and began laying at approximately 20 weeks. One lays blue eggs, and one lays white ones.

I've attached some pictures of the occasional neon green albumin I've found. Usually the neon green is in a fresh cracked egg that I've already added to a bowl of other eggs which means my dog gets scrambled eggs for breakfast. She's still alive.

I wash my eggs before I use them, however I do refrigerate them when I gather them. Now that the younger ducks are laying, I'm up to my eyeballs in eggs.

1. These are either the fifth or sixth eggs I seen with funky albumin since they started laying in 9/2019. They lay almost every day. I didn't realize this until I started finding clutches.

2. Sometimes they hide eggs, and I occasionally find clutches of six to 10 eggs. It's possible that these eggs were between one and two weeks old when I found them. It's possible that there was a small fissure in the shell.

4. Until today, I did not know who was laying the Kryptonite eggs. I know that at least one had a light blue shell. Maybe Blue Egg Baby is the culprit.

5. What the heck?! Duck Duck Go (we laugh at Google), was of no help whatsoever.

What say you, fellow permies? Why does the albumin glow in the dark?

Weeeeird, I haven't seen that before. I've had three different ducks lay blue eggs, and never had green on the inside.

I do know that duck eggs (at least mine!) are a lot poopier than chicken eggs. I'm wondering if refrigerating them with the poop on them sucks the poopy bacteria into the shell, and it grows making not-so-glorious green?

I keep my duck eggs unwashed in the garage, and we've had eggs out there that were months old (before we kept ducks, my husband got something like 20 flats of duck eggs from someone selling them at a discount), and the eggs never had the greenness.

I wash mine before eating, or refrigerating. The fact that it seems to be most present near the shell, makes me think some bacteria got in and did some crazy colorful growing.

I know that it's important to wash in hot water, because cold can make a vacuum that sucks in stuff through the shell, so maybe putting them into the fridge while still warm from a duck might cause this???

I think you might be right about not washing them before the fridge, Nicole.

None are rotten. They're just weird. I hope I didn't poison Eric or the mail carrier.

Is there a way for me to tag Eric T.? Eric, did the duck eggs glow in the dark?

Ah - but these were washed before the fridge. I was washing all of the eggs everyday, and I ended up hard boiling 30 (!!!) eggs at one point. InstaPot to the rescue.

So these guys were washed. I didn't start refrigerating dirty eggs until about two weeks ago.

Hmmm...

(Right now all of the eggs that were in the fridge between your post and my previous reply are in warm water in the sink about to be cleaned).

Do you ever see fissures in your shells? They're not cracked per se, and the shells aren't thin, but one in a while after I've washed them, I see a thin lengthwise fissure.

Rarely are the eggs warm. They lay alllllll day, because they are crazy.

Gar. I do think there's a temperature thing going on.

Please, please, please don't let me have poisoned anyone.

ETA: I think the small fissure might be from me mishandling the eggs when I collect them.

Do not eat!

Eggs with these colors should be discarded:Off-color egg white, i.e. pink, green or iridescent – indicates spoilage due to pseudomonas bacteria, a very common type of bacteria that healthy people often carry without knowing it. This bacterium produces a greenish, fluorescent, water-soluble pigment in the egg white. If you find an egg with an off-color egg white, DO NOT EAT.

Egg Safety Center

I know the way we wash eggs really can impact things. I kept getting ucky fishy flavor in my duck eggs. I'd thought it was what I was feeding them, or something in their environment, only to find it was how I wash them!

Now I wash each egg individually. I don't let the eggs sit in water. I wash one quick in hot water and put it on a towel. Then I wash the next, putting it on the towel. Then I thoroughly dry each egg before storing them. That way, they all stay wet for a short of a time as possible.

Cool. Cool.

So, the culprit is pseudomonas bacteria.

If you'd like to nerd out, here are some articles Poultry Science

ABSTRACT

The study showed that the hen housing system and egg storage conditions had significant influence on differences in the qualitative traits of eggs. The most rapid qualitative traits changes were observed in the eggs laid by the hens kept in the free-range and litter systems. After the first week of storage fungi were found on the eggshell surface but significant growth of fungi on the eggshell surface was noted after 3 wk, regardless of the storage conditions. Higher humidity during egg storage causes the dynamic development of fungi in the albumen. The principal component analysis proved the dependency between ergosterol and the trichothecene concentration in the albumen. Mycotoxins in the albumen indicate the presence of pathogenic species of microscopic fungi. The albumen of the eggs laid by the hens kept in cages had the lowest concentration of mycotoxins. The results of the study showed that the conditions of the henhouse environment significantly influenced the initial contamination of eggshells. Egg storage conditions, i.e., high air humidity, favor the development of fungi on the eggshell surface, affect the dynamics of fungal growth into the albumen and the production of mycotoxins.

Long story short, if I have *any* doubt as to the age of an egg, it gets scrambled and feed to the dogs and cats. The neon green disappears when cooked and is killed by heat. However, I do NOT want to share these things with another person.

This is not my photo, but it give an idea of what these green things look like when raw.

Good times!

An alternate possibility: vitamin B2 (riboflavin) can give egg whites a greenish coloration. This is desirable and would be found only in fresh high-quality eggs where there's a source of vitamin B2 in the duck or chicken's diet. Ever take a high-dose B complex supplement and notice your urine gets a neon yellow-green color? Ditto.