Lumps in yolks won't scramble - any ideas?

[Henley]

We have a flock of various breeds and I'm not sure which hen (or hens) have laid it, but twice now, I've had an egg that has lumps in its yolk. We eat scrambled eggs a lot, almost daily, but the lumps in these eggs' yolks don't whisk out the way normal yolks do. They just get caught in the whisk. The lumps are firm and hold together but I could smash them up using the whisk as a cutting edge.

They're strange enough that I threw the eggs out and didn't eat them. Anyone have an idea what this might be? To my untrained eyes, it looks like some kind of tumor.

The eggs were gathered within the last 12 hrs, kept at room temperature, yolk color and appearance normal (intense yellow) until I tried scrambling. They were not exposed to freezing temperature, either outside in the coop or inside in our house. The hens range the backyard daily, supplement with standard chicken feed and get fairly abundant household scraps with a fair bit of protein and fat.

If I've got a diseased bird, I'd like to know (have to figure out who's laying these) and do what I can.

Thanks for any advice!

(I'm new and can't post images yet, but if you're REALLY interested, email me and I'll send you the link to the pic!)

 

[smokeykk]

Eww that sounds to me like the egg was in really hot conditions for more than 24 hours, where do you live? Is it really hot there? and are you sure that the egg was in 12 hours?

 

[Henley]

Thanks for the welcome, Smokeykk! I'm glad to be here!

We do live in the heat (central Tex). It's definitely possible that that one egg affected could have been left more than 12 hrs, maybe missed the first time around? I'll keep an eye on that, and maybe stick a thermometer in the coop and see just how hot it really does get out there. The birds are free to move, but maybe the forgotten eggs are sitting there cooking on the sly

Thanks for the idea!

 

[snowflake]

I have had yolks so thick they seemed 1/2 cooked. I was told this is due to very high bug and worm eating, I would think in Tx. you can get hot enough to cook an egg though. Not so much in MI.