Cork hen 'Chiki Minaj' lays rare egg within egg
Fergal Savage at his home near Bartlemy, Co Cork with Chicki Minaj and the enormous egg laid by her. Picture: David Keane.
Hen owner Fergal Savage of Leamlara near Watergrasshill was intrigued when he went to his henhouse on Tuesday morning to find an eggstremely large egg, more than twice the size of the other eggs laid during the night by his six hens, and thought it might be a one in 25 million triple yolk egg.
“We were really excited because of the sheer size of the egg and thought it might be the rarest of rare eggs, a triple yolker,” he said.
When the photographer from called to his home on Tuesday evening, he cracked the egg only to find another fully formed egg inside the shell. He then cracked the second egg to find two yolks.
“I’ve seen six or seven double yolk eggs over the 20 years I’ve been keeping hens,” he said.
“I’ve never seen an egg fully formed inside another egg.”
It is a rare phenomenon in nature and is called counter-peristalsis contraction.
This happens when an egg is pushed back up the hen’s reproductive system and becomes embedded in another newly forming egg.
“We were kind of disappointed it wasn’t a triple yolker but we will make a nice scrambled egg out of it and have it for breakfast tomorrow morning.”
The mother of the family’s Wednesday morning ’super freaky’ breakfast dish, Chiki Minaj, was named by Fergal’s daughter, Erin.
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