THE POULTRY AND EGG INDUSTRY IN EUROPE 
39 
Eggs are sold not only upon their interior quality, but also upon 
their size. Therefore, the Danish cooperatives felt that the easiest 
way to grade eggs for purchase and insure the financial advantages 
of improved size reaching the producers, would be to buy eggs by 
weight. By this means the farmer whose hens laid the larger eggs 
would receive more money per egg than the farmer whose hens 
produced smaller eggs. It also meant that the small eggs would 
remain and be consumed upon the farms, as they would not bring 
as much money per egg as the larger ones w T hen sold. The results 
of this method have been striking. 
The average size of the Danish egg has increased through the 
selection of fowls which laid large eggs until now the Danish egg 
probably averages greater in weight than that of any other country 
in the world. It is not uncommon for cases of Danish eggs as sold 
for export to weigh as high as 19 pounds to 10 dozen, w T hich is 
equivalent to 30.4 ounces per single dozen. Eggs weighing 18 
pounds to 10 dozen, or at the rate of 28.8 ounces per single dozen, 
are very common. The average weight of the American egg is 
probably between 23 and 25 ounces per dozen. The gradations in 
export sizes of the Danish egg with their percentages of different 
weights may be typically described by giving the number of cases 
and weights of the eggs as received at one cooperative egg-packing 
plant. In this plant in August three days' receipts totalled 235 cases. 
These were divided as shown in Table 3. 
Table 3. — ^Yci(J}lts of eggs received at a Danish cooperative egg-packing plant 
Number 
of cases 
Total 
Weight 
per 10 
dozen 
Weight 
per dozen 
Per cent 
of total 
70 
50 
95 
20 
Dozens 
5,600 
6,000 
11,400 
2,400 
Pounds 
18 
17 
16 
14 
Ounces 
28.8 
27.2 
25.6 
22.4 
22.0 
23.6 
44.9 
9.5 
235 
25,400 
100.0 
There are no eggs in this lot weighing at the rate of 15 pounds to 
10 dozen or 24 ounces per single dozen, which is the ordinary weight 
for good merchantable eggs in the United States. This demonstrates 
careful grading on the part of the packers. The 15-pound eggs were 
sent in two directions, most of them doubtless going into the 16- 
pound eggs and as few as possible going into the 14-pound eggs. 
But few eggs weighing less than the 14 pounds to 10 dozen (22.4 
ounces per dozen) were received, showing that the purchase by 
weight worked to prevent their being sent to market. Considering 
the 16, 17, 18 pound eggs as one class, the astonishing fact is observed 
that over 90 per cent of the Danish export eggs are above the normal 
weight of eggs as marketed in the United States. 
Eggs weighing 14 pounds to 10 dozen and 19 pounds per 10 dozen 
do not form a large proportion of the eggs which are exported, 
because the small eggs do not leave the farms and hens do not lay 
many, perhaps fortunately, of the'supersizes. The largest proportion 
of the eggs are of such size that they can be sold as 16-pound eggs. 
