> Over here in the bay area some Japanese markets have "golden yolk" brand eggs that have deep orange colored yolks. I don't know if they're more nutritious / taste better but the texture is different. When frying these and regular store bought eggs in the same pan, they hold their shape better. The store bought eggs spreads out more and the egg white tears more easily.
Your issues sound more like age than quality; I worked on small hobby farms with 10 hens and large scale farms with 1000s of laying hens and altered their feed to try and change the yolk colour. It's what you'd expect, actually, the more bugs and less processed food they ate (especially grass) the more gamey the eggs tasted. The more bread we fed them, with butters and additives, the lighter the yolks got.
We gave them kitchen scraps, and they visited the compost heaps for bugs and let them roam the gardens as a form of pest control; during the spring/summer they were learning to hunt down field mice and grasshoppers and the yolks got blood red as a result of this increase in protein. The egg shells were determined by breed, and quite consistently the same color as their ear areas [0].
Store bough eggs could be weeks old before they arrive to your kitchen, and even longer since most won't eat them right away, too.
In short, chicken breeds and their respective diets will be the main determinant of egg color and yolk respectively.
They are also pretty mean when in large groups to other hens, the term 'pecking order' is real in nature and more-so with hens who will bully an often feebler hen in order to establish dominance within the pack. Having a rooster sort of calms them down, but not in terms of hierarchy as they are hard-wired to asset dominance within their group. These things really do behave like little raptors, which is why I ate like a dozen eggs a day when I farmed. They ware also cannibals who will eat their own eggs for no apparent reason--they were all well fed and had plenty of other options for food.
Your issues sound more like age than quality; I worked on small hobby farms with 10 hens and large scale farms with 1000s of laying hens and altered their feed to try and change the yolk colour. It's what you'd expect, actually, the more bugs and less processed food they ate (especially grass) the more gamey the eggs tasted. The more bread we fed them, with butters and additives, the lighter the yolks got.
We gave them kitchen scraps, and they visited the compost heaps for bugs and let them roam the gardens as a form of pest control; during the spring/summer they were learning to hunt down field mice and grasshoppers and the yolks got blood red as a result of this increase in protein. The egg shells were determined by breed, and quite consistently the same color as their ear areas [0].
Store bough eggs could be weeks old before they arrive to your kitchen, and even longer since most won't eat them right away, too.
In short, chicken breeds and their respective diets will be the main determinant of egg color and yolk respectively.
They are also pretty mean when in large groups to other hens, the term 'pecking order' is real in nature and more-so with hens who will bully an often feebler hen in order to establish dominance within the pack. Having a rooster sort of calms them down, but not in terms of hierarchy as they are hard-wired to asset dominance within their group. These things really do behave like little raptors, which is why I ate like a dozen eggs a day when I farmed. They ware also cannibals who will eat their own eggs for no apparent reason--they were all well fed and had plenty of other options for food.
0: https://vjppoultry.com/2018/03/25/egg-color-and-colored-earl...