Though the egg-inside-of-an-egg phenomenon is rare, it does happen. It's due to a counter-peristalsis contraction, which happens when an egg is pushed back up into the chicken's reproductive system and becomes embedded in another newly forming egg.
Finding an egg inside an egg is very rare. Most chicken keepers will never see one, and if they do, they're unlikely to see another again. Eggs inside eggs are like the Halley's comet of chicken keeping. Knight's egg had two anomalies, the rubbery outer egg in addition to the inner egg that formed completely.
This egg-inside-egg phenomenon is called a counter-peristalsis contraction. Basically, it's when an egg that has already passed through the hen's oviduct gets sucked back up before it can finish developing, allowing another egg to develop around it.
Young hens may lay a shell-less egg or two right as they begin to lay eggs for the first time, before their systems have "gotten into the groove" of laying. If your girls are on a proper diet of lay ration and have oyster shell free choice, they should have all the calcium they need.
During their exploration of chicken embryology, youth learn that for a chicken to develop from an egg it must be fertilized. Most eggs sold commercially in the grocery store are from poultry farms and have not been fertilized. In fact, laying hens at most commercial farms have never even seen a rooster.
If you crack it open, a fertile egg can be identified by a small white circle on the yolk, that has a 'bullseye' like shape - i.e. one small white circle, with another white ring on the outside of it. This is created by a cluster of cells that, if incubated, will hopefully develop into a baby chick.
You don't need a rooster for your hens to lay eggs, as hens will lay just as many eggs whether there's a rooster around or not. However, a rooster is needed to fertilize the eggs to hatch them into baby chicks.
A one-in-25-million chance
"I managed to find some data from the British Egg Information Service suggesting a double-yolk egg is about one in 1,000 and a triple-yolk egg is about one in 25 million," she said.
Triple yolkers occur from time to time, and in fact, it's possible to get more yolks in an egg. The most yolks ever found in an egg was 11.
A double yolk occurs when a hen's body releases more than one egg during her daily ovulation cycle. And, just like humans, it's possible for two — or more — eggs to make their way from the ovary and through the reproductive tract. The overall odds of a hen laying a double yolk are one in 1,000.
A rooster inseminates a hen with his sperm by jumping on her back, lowering his tail, and touching her cloaca with his. As we mentioned earlier, this is called the “cloacal kiss”. Inside his cloaca, is a small raised point called the papilla. The papilla is what passes the sperm.
All eggs have a tiny white dot on the surface of the yolk called the germinal disc. It's a cluster of cells that will develop into a chick if the egg is fertilised. In an unfertilised egg, the germinal disc looks like a bright white spot, 1-2mm across.
A fairy egg forms when a piece of reproductive body tissue or a blood clot separates from the oviduct wall. The hen's egg-producing glands don't know that this tissue is not a yolk, and proceeds to create albumen (egg white), membranes and a shell around it, as it travels through the oviduct.
By themselves, double yolks are fairly rare – you might find them in 1 of every 1,000 eggs. These eggs typically come from our younger hens who are still learning how to lay eggs. As you might expect, double yolked egg shells tend to be pretty big.
You can tell whether the farm egg you just cracked open for your breakfast is fertilized or not. Examine the egg for the germinal disc, a white spot floating above the surface of the yolk. The germinal disk of a sterile egg contains only the hen's cells and is fully white in color.
Double-yolk eggs are a byproduct of rapid ovulation. That means two yolks are released in quick succession into a hen's oviduct (aka fallopian tube) and end up in the same shell. Typically, yolks are released about an hour apart, but hormonal changes or a hyperactive ovary will cause double releases.
Odds of quadruple-yolk egg are one in 11 billion
According to the British Egg Information Service, the odds of discovering a quadruple-yolker are one in 11 billion, according to a press release from Dakota Layers.
Multi-yolk eggs are a byproduct of rapid ovulation in chickens and are most common in younger hens as their reproductive systems aren't yet fully matured, according to the Egg Safety Center. According to Guinness World Records, the most yolks ever found in a single chicken egg is five.
The odds of finding one of the these scarce eggs is said to be 1,000 to one, so theoretically the odds on finding ten in a row is 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 - or a quintillion - to one.
Yes. It is a rare occurrence. When two chicks hatch from the same egg, the egg usually has two yolks. Usually, one embryo out competes the other and only one chick survives to hatch.
Double-yolked eggs are perfectly safe to consume. In places like Hong Kong and India, hens are even bred to lay double-yolked eggs, since they are said to bring good fortune. But why do some eggs get an extra yolk and how does that affect your breakfast?
The odds of getting just one double-yolked egg is one in 1,000, six in a row is one in a quintillion.
A hen does not know if her eggs are fertilised or not. In fact (much like a human) a rooster can be infertile, so a hen's eggs might not be fertilised even if she is in a flock with a rooster. Many modern breeds and commercial hybrid hens will do nothing with their eggs other than lay them and walk away.
An unfertilized egg WILL NEVER develop a chick even if the mother hen incubates it. A fertilized egg COULD develop into a chick under the right circumstances. Even if you have a rooster, as long as you are collecting eggs every day you will not crack open an egg to find a developing chick.
A hen to rooster transformation is most definitely possible no matter how impossible it may seem. This occurrence usually occurs due to a genetic condition where the chickens only functioning ovary is damaged. The non-functioning ovary can then start to develop into a structure known as an avo-testis.