Cracking eggs.

Free range or organic eggs?
Maybe grit deficiency in the hens. There has to be some background to some food staying at the same price despite rising costs.

I'm finding the opposite shysal I buy free range (local) eggs from Asda and find that the shells are extra hard. I have to hit them pretty hard to break them and often end up breaking the yolk too.

I buy extra large eggs from a local supplier, most have double yolks. The shells on these eggs differ. Some are thin, others quite tough. They all come on the same tray, so I assume they are from the same source, but I could be wrong. When I crack them it's always a surprise.

No problem with Sainsbury eggs I crack them on the side of the bowl as I always have.

I have thought that the time of year seems to make a difference!

I buy organic eggs and those shells are quite thick.

Free range hens are not necessarily as free range as we like to think. They may be kept in vast barns where they can go outside but the numbers are so great that many hens cannot reach the pop holes that allow them to access the outdoors. Also debeaking isn't banned for free range hens whereas it is for organic.

I opened a box of six yesterday and used them all - each one was a double yoke!

I'm so easily pleased that I still get excited when I find a double yolk egg.

I don't bake and if we are having eggs for breakfast H does the cooking so can't comment.
As an aside H did call me to see an odd one recently one normal yolk and one small (5p piece ) solid but squishy lump in one shell.

Saw this kitchen tool-- www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B06XS4XTMT/?tag=gransnetforum-21. Looks handy.

dionar , that gadget looks ideal, but I am not prepared to pay 10.99! Thank you for finding it.

It's due to poorly fed battery chickens. They live on a very poor diet and are unhealthy and unhappy too.
They taste disgusting too.

Try cracking one of these! You need a hammer and chisel ?

I can’t understand people paying £10 for some gadget when you can easily crack on the side of basin or side of anything else I ve never used the knife method I think I d drop it

I crack eggs on the side of the bowl if I'm whisking them. If they are going into some sort of batter, I crack them with a knife. I don't know why, but I always do it this way.

Nanabilly, I don't buy eggs from battery hens. I will consider changing from free range to organic.

It's due to poorly fed battery chickens.
shysal said that she bought the free range eggs.
However, they are not outside for long enough to peck up grit, etc, essential for forming hard shells.

A friend of ours keeps 'chooks' and we buy our eggs from her.
All her hens are ex battery birds, and now have a wonderful life, they're truly free range!
I loathe having to buy supermarket eggs when Judith's go off lay over winter, but will only buy organic then.
If everyone refused to buy cheap, intensively farmed eggs, hens would all have better lives!

Hard boil them first, problem solved.

Not sure hard boiling first is a good idea if you want fried, scrambled or poached lol. Not to mention if you are baking a cake!

Surely battery farms have been outlawed, or so I thought.

I keep free range chickens - a dozen of them have half an acre so they're properly free range and get lots of grit and good organic food. But I do find the shells vary a lot - depends on the chicken I suppose and how good they are at re-processing calcium! And how old the chickens are too ... (It comes to us all!)

As you can imagine having a guest house we get through dozens of eggs and sometimes the shells just disintegrate when you try to break them and it drives me crackers fishing out bits of shell.
I have found free range are the best though

I'm not a great lover of eggs, and am always getting bits of shell in the egg, having to fish it out... and that really puts me off. I thought I was just heavy handed!!
Also I can't bear the 'cordy' bit and get this out, and it seems that there is blood spots or other random looking bits in the eggs now, and most end up down the sink!!