Inside out
For the last several days, all our eggs have been brown. That’s a little odd, because two of our chickens — Flappy and Frick — lay blue eggs. They’re among our best layers, but sometimes they like to take a few days off. Resting, I guess, or something like that.
We didn’t think a lot about the fact that we hadn’t gotten any blue eggs for a few days until I went out to put the chickens up for the night tonight. As I walked into their yard, I caught sight of something unexpected laying in the mud by the gate.
“Hold out your hands,” I said to Robyn when I got inside. “I have something that’s going to make you gasp, and scream ‘holy cow!’”
She looked away from her computer screen and at me while I tried to slip my wet and muddy shoes off while keeping one hand behind my back.
“It’s not anything gross, is it?” she asked.
“No, it’s just something stunning.”
She held out her hand, and I laid the thing I’d found in the chicken yard in it.
She gasped, then shouted, “HOLY SHIT!”
“I told you,” I said with a grin. “Can you believe that?”
“HOW DID SHE DO THAT?”
“I don’t know, it was laying on the ground when I went out there.”
“Oh, it has blood on it,” she said, sounding concerned.
I leaned in for a closer look. “It’s just a little bit. She looked okay when she was eating popcorn earlier. Acting normal.”
“This makes my uterus hurt. Poor thing.”
“Get the camera. I’ll go get another one for comparison.”
So, after three days of nothing from Flappy McGee, this is what she gave us:
That’s a normal large brown egg on the left
“Want to see what’s in it?” I asked.
“You know I do!”
I carried the egg into the kitchen and got a bowl out of the cabinet.
“I’m almost afraid there’s something alive in it,” I said, because I think about freaky things like that all the time. “Some mewling thing that’s going to fall out into the bowl and I’ll have to kill before it escapes and starts killing cats.”
The shell of the monster egg was thin, and cracked easily. What came out was even more surprising than the egg itself:
A yolk, a white…and another complete egg, this one normal-sized.
Robyn may have screamed when she saw the second egg, but she probably won’t admit it.
The second egg was almost perfectly normal:
The yolk was bigger, and the white was a little cloudy.
Life in the country sure is interesting.
I might’ve screamed a little, too, when I saw the photo. Dude. That’s peculiar and creepy.
If they would have developed and hatched, would that be twins?? What kind? Identical?And would they be co-joined? I just creeped myself out *shudder*
That’s one of the freakiest things I’ve ever seen and at the same kind incredibly amazing.
Check this out:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/4147496a4560.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCp5eS9SFcc&feature=related
Scrambled or over easy?
I’ve seen double yolk eggs, but never that. We’re all astounded here. My wife says that Flappy is likely off in the corner tonight, saying “ow. ow. omigod ow”
So… How did it *taste*?
WoW wow Wow!! I’m speechless.
A parasitic egg!!
That is really freaky. Was the second egg closer to “normal” size?
That was the coolest thing I have seen in a very LONG time. I bet she feels better after getting that out of her!
Funny, my husband is making french toast and just came in to tell me that one of the farm eggs he cracked open had 2 yolks. We were impressed enough with that- and now this. Very cool.
My husband’s response: “I tell you what, that’s the kind of stuff that used to get farmwives burned.”
Robyn better watch out, I guess!
Your poor chicken needs an ice pack for her whohaa and maybe a sitz bath. DAMN… And to Carrie’s comment, I think I peed my pants.
Wow, my dad has had chickens for over 40 years and I have never seen anything like that. It must be all your TLC!
This entry rocks!
Very, very cool!
Holy Crap. That’s the like a human giving birth to an 18 pound baby. POOR Flappy McGee. Did Robyn suddenly remember hearing a chicken suddenly making loud, screaming-like noises earlier in the day?
Amazing! I know the shell goes on as the egg is being laid - do you think somehow she retained the first egg in her body, added another “egg insides” (yolk & white) and then put a second shell around the whole thing? Very cool!
ouch.
My husband’s response: “I tell you what, that’s the kind of stuff that used to get farmwives burned.â€
Ha!
Fred,send your pics of the egg into Backyard Poultry magazine!They’ll love it!
OMG - that is so cool! I have to admit that I screamed a little scream when I scrolled down to the egg inside the egg photo - I didn’t know what to expect. Glad to hear that Flappy is ok after her experience.
Poor Flappy. I’ve seen that happen before - I think there were 3-4 layers of shell and egg bits that time (the egg was never laid, btw, we found it during a post-mortem). Elizabeth was right - for whatever reason the first egg traveled the wrong direction in the oviduct and voila, two eggs in one.
I’d also expect that the reason the white from the ‘inner’ egg was cloudy was the cooking effect of staying inside poor Flappy too long.
I grew up on a farm with chicken and we grew all our own meat and produce. We used to get double yolks all the time. But I have never seen anything like that before. Cool!
[…] The yolk was bigger, and the white was a little cloudy. - vit Published in: […]
When I saw the first photo I thought you had a goose mixed in with the chickens, but I guess the yolk’s on me. Sorry.
Wow–we used to get double yolk eggs all the time–and once in a while a triple yolk, but not anything like this.
Although my Grandpa said he had seen a chicken lay a double layered egg once, when he was a boy. I always thought he was kidding me, but I guess he wasn’t.
Great post and great pictures!
(I wish I had chickens, too….I miss them!)
That is some freaky shit! Poor Flappy.
I wonder what the pigs are going to do!
Wow, we just had a chicken do the same thing with a brown egg last week. Parent’s failed to grab one of the eight cameras around the house and take a picture…
We’ve been checking all the large eggs since, camera ready, but they’ve just been double yolkers so far.