{"id":8784,"date":"2026-05-26T17:04:23","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T17:04:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/?p=8784"},"modified":"2026-05-26T17:04:26","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T17:04:26","slug":"why-do-we-eat-chicken-eggs-duck-eggs-and-quail-eggs-but-not-turkey-eggs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/?p=8784","title":{"rendered":"Why do we eat chicken eggs, duck eggs, and quail eggs, but not turkey eggs?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

They\u2019re perfectly edible and apparently quite tasty, but you never see them on a menu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eggs are a staple food<\/a> in most American households, used for everything from breakfast <\/a>scrambles to cakes, cookies, and custards. We don\u2019t generally specify what kind of eggs we mean when we say \u201ceggs\u201d in the U.S<\/a>, but we\u2019re almost always talking about chicken eggs<\/a>. Occasionally, we might see duck<\/a> eggs or quail eggs on a menu, and rarely, something exotic like an emu <\/a>egg. But do we ever see turkey<\/em> eggs being served? Nope, pretty much never.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Considering how many turkeys are raised domestically in the U.S. (around 218 million<\/a>) and how many wild turkeys roam among us (around 7 million<\/a>), it seems like we should make better use of their eggs. They are egg-laying birds, after all, and since turkey meat is so similar to chicken meat, it seems logical that turkey eggs would be similar to chicken eggs, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Why don’t they sell us turkey eggs ?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Basically, that\u2019s true. Turkey eggs are larger than chicken eggs, and they have a stronger shell, but from what people say, they\u2019re similar to eating chicken eggs, only a little richer. Larger and<\/em> richer, and yet we don\u2019t eat them on the regular? Why the heck not?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Self-Sufficient Backyard YouTube channel <\/a>explains the whole thing in a video that\u2019s been viewed by nearly 4 million people. Clearly, this is a burning question for people once it\u2019s brought to their attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Basically, what it boils down to is that their size makes them hard to handle, package, and store. Turkeys also aren\u2019t nearly as prolific as chickens. (Chickens lay eggs around once per day, while turkeys lay at most twice per week.) It\u2019s also more expensive to raise turkeys than chickens, so the price of a turkey egg is prohibitive, at around $3 per egg. Considering how everyone lost their minds over chicken eggs at $6 a dozen, it\u2019s unlikely people would pay $36 for a dozen turkey eggs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, some people who have eaten turkey eggs shared their thoughts on how they taste, and now people (me, I am people) really want to try them:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI have eaten turkey eggs for years. They are larger shells are thicker but they taste wonderful.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve baked with Turkey eggs and they made the best pancakes I have EVER tasted.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey taste like chicken eggs, I have turkeys. They only lay seasonally, generally starting in March, and they\u2019ll continue to lay through June-August. They can lay 60ish eggs a year. They\u2019re about 2x the volume of a chicken egg. They make excellent omelettes. Harder to crack, with a thicker membrane and shell.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Growing up, my family had a turkey! She laid eggs and we were always enamored by how huge they were. They taste wonderful!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"turkeys,<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe had turkeys with our chickens. They laid eggs daily with the chickens from March to September then would stop while the chickens would just slow down. I was surprised because I thought they would just lay a clutch once or twice because that\u2019s what the wild turkeys do but nope. The only down fall we found was that cracking them was difficult. But if you use a butter knife to give it a whack at the top it works pretty well. It was like getting two egg whites and one yolk in chicken egg ratio lol.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTaste exactly like chicken eggs. Way bigger. The only difference is the shell is way tougher to crack. So good.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apparently experience with turkeys and turkey eggs is not uncommon? City folks, take note:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was raised on turkey\u2019s eggs\u2026 I come in from a part of Canada where we are raising turkeys. In Valcartier, turkey eggs used to be much cheaper than any other kind of eggs.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGrowing up on a farm being born in the 50s in western North Carolina we ate lots of turkey eggs. We usually had a dozen or so hen turkeys so we had quite a few to spare.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy inlaws usually give us turkey eggs for the holidays. They have a big farm in Virginia with all sorts of animals. They usually just sell their eggs at the local market and give us the rest lol.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe wild turkeys that live in my area used to get in my bird feeders when I had a house. One day I found an egg in the yard, possibly as payment lol.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"eggs,<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got a turkey for a pet. Her name is \u201cSweetpea\u201d and I keep her around for no other reason except that she\u2019s awesome and provides good conversation. Every now and then during the warm months of the year she leaves me breakfast somewhere around the yard.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then, just for funsies, there\u2019s this little anecdote about those \u201ctechnically edible\u201d emu eggs:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBack in elementary school we had a teacher that raised Emus. She would always make delicious cakes but would tell no one how she made them. Eventually she told my mother<\/a> the reasons she told no one was because she was afraid that people would stop eating them if they found out that she was using one emu egg for every three chicken eggs. We didn\u2019t care.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There you go. Answering a question you may never have asked, but desperately needed answered once you thought about it. (Kind of want to try one now, don\u2019t you?)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

They\u2019re perfectly edible and apparently quite tasty, but you never see them on a menu. Eggs are a staple food in most American households, used for everything<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8785,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/705717796_1467285482099105_2763993825364916574_n.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8784"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8784\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8786,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8784\/revisions\/8786"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}