AN EDGERTON mum had a cracking time discovering three double yolkers in a pack of six eggs.

Carole McParland was preparing some bacon and egg sandwiches for her husband Peter and sons Oliver, 14, and Sebastian, 10, when she opened the eggs and had a shock.

Carole said: “It was Saturday morning and I was getting breakfast ready. It was a surprise, I’ve only ever seen one and that was when I was a little girl.

“I cracked open the first one and told everyone. By the time I’d got to the last one they were crowding around the pan having a look.”

The odds of finding a double yolk in an egg in the UK are approximately 1,000 to one.

Theoretically the odds of three in a row are 1,000. This figure to the power of three makes the odds one in 1,000,000,000 – but beware!

The fact that some hens have a tendency towards laying double yolkers mean the actual likelihood of a multiple find is not quite as unusual.

Carole added: “People say the odds are really against it but I wouldn’t know what they are.

“I bought them in the Co-op in Marsh and it must be a lucky shop for me.

“A while ago I bought a bottle of wine in there and won two tickets to the England v India one day test match in Leeds!”

Depending on which part of the egg you like the most, finding two yolks in your egg is either a blessing or a curse.

But why do they happen?

The egg comes together in the hen when the ovum is surrounded by egg white and the shell.

Sometimes a hormonal error means the parts do not come together in the right order.

Two yolks can be simultaneously released in the same egg. Double-yolk eggs result from an error in this process, caused by yolk production becoming unsynchronised with that of the rest of the egg – there can even be triple yolks. It is common in young hens whose hormonal patterns have not established themselves properly.

The eggs would not however create “twin” chicks however as there is not enough space for them to develop properly to hatching.

While young birds lay them more often, there is no breed which produces them – as the failure of double yolks to produce chicks means they’d die out.