Shalom
What is the halacha regarding spots in farm / pasture raised eggs? Are there size and color specifications? Sometimes it feels like I empty half my carton because of the merest speck of brown.
You can remove the speck. No need to throw out the whole egg.
My understanding is they pasture outside, different diet… still no mating. Correct me if I’m wrong.
Exactly right. Sometimes there is a larger floating spot, other times it’s a very minor brown speck. If these are how eggs used to naturally be, how did the chachamim discern between what was blood and what was normal for pastured eggs?
It comes down to the Metzius or reality of the situation. If its a situation where a Rooster is able to mate with chickens, then there is a concern for the blood specks. Generally speaking in chicken farms, this is not the reality.
According to the farm, no mating whatsoever.
What I’m referencing is more the Tony brown specks in the yolk sometimes.
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Yes not an issue.
I use to keep chickens. Those specks are called ‘meat spots’ but they are simply pieces of shell that got in before the shell hardened and haven’t hardened (last step before the chicken lays the egg) because they stayed wet. This is why brown eggs have more of these specks than white. The brown shell pieces looks more like blood than white shell pieces.
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Thank you for that information.
I got this response about rooster and fertilization-
I often find brown spots so do I need to remove these brown spots?
“ It is always our intention for our eggs to be unfertilized as our flocks are typically a girls only affair. It would be extremely rare to get a fertile egg from us in any of our brands. While that is the case, our eggs are not guaranteed to be unfertilized. When our farmers receive the teenage hens from a pullet raiser, we do very occasionally get a rooster or two. As some of our farmers let them stay on the farm, there is a very small possibility that some eggs might be fertilized. That is a rarity though, so it would not be common to receive any fertile eggs from our ladies. Even if an egg were to be fertilized, our eggs are cooled upon collection and kept cold until they are purchased, which would prevent incubation.”
Remove the brown spot but the rest is kosher