Bizarre egg doubles your value

Weighing in at 181g, this is probably one of the largest chicken eggs ever laid — but wait until you see what's inside of it. And yes, it looks to be genuine — or, at the very least, possible. After you've watched the video, read the explanation below. But watch the video first so you don't spoil the surprise.

According to Alex Williams and verified by New Scientist an egg within an egg is a natural but rare occurence. Occasionally during normal egg formation an egg travels back up the oviduct, meets another egg travelling down, and becomes encased inside the second egg during the shell forming process, thus creating an egg within an egg. It is especially unusual to encounter this phenomenon in a shop-bought egg, because these are routinely candled (a bright light is held up to them to examine the contents), and any irregularities are normally rejected.

Hens share their nesting boxes and lay about one egg a day

During daylight hours the hens take their turn in occupying a nest to lay their egg for that day. They lay eggs in clutches, for example 15 eggs, resulting in one egg laid approximately every 26 hours. Hens only lay their egg during daylight hours so each hen will miss laying an egg once the clutch is complete and it's night time. The next clutch starts after having a day off. This first egg for the clutch will be layed early the next morning.

The lay is spread out over the day. However, there is a peak nest demand period during the morning around 10:00am with less demand in the late afternoon. The eggs are collected from the nests up to 3 times a day.

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Does Kyle answer the ultimate question? No not that one, the chicken and egg one ;-) We'll leave it up to you to decide. But there's no doubt in our minds that he is a sculptor with infinite patience and great taste in materials. He painstakingly selected and glued the perfect range of shell fragments and colours to create a delicate sculpture with plenty of character. Kyle is a Brighton based designer specialising in hand crafted models, set design and art direction. 

Title: Which Came First?
Artist: Kyle Bean

 Image courtesy of the artist.

Peeling an egg? Just boil and blow

Thanks to Mandy for letting us know about this technique for peeling hard boiled eggs. Maybe you've seen it before, but frankly it blew our minds :-) We have not tried it out yet, anyone else have have any great tips let us know in the comments.

Update on Saturday, November 19, 2011 by ecoeggs

The original video we linked to was removed on YouTube so we have linked a new one.

How many eggs does it take to build a city?

Around 10,000 apparently. A friend recently sent us these fantastic egg sculpture images and we could not wait to share them with you. The web is full of posts on the images but many are blindly regurgitating several fictional accounts, one even claiming they are stones not eggs! It took a little while to track down the original artist and the facts, and now it's our pleasure to tell you the story. 

Accumulating Eggs is another masterpiece from Weng Peijun's modern art lab, and reflects the artist's insight into emerging social and cultural issues in a rapidly modernising China.

The project was started at the end of 2004 and took almost a year to complete. He must have eaten a lot of omelettes that year! Around ten thousand chicken eggs and slightly fewer duck and quail eggs had their contents removed and were used to make the miniature model city. Viewing from above, you see an image on a 50-yuan banknote. The title of the project apparently has its origins in an ancient Chinese idiom that dates back to the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 BC), “as precarious as a pile of eggs”. Every egg was first cleaned and sprayed with shiny, high-gloss gum to preserve their appearance then patiently glued together.

The exhibition was displayed at the Guangdong Museum Of Art in China, and also at an avant-garde exhibit in Groninger Museum in the Netherlands.

Title: Accumulating eggs / Weng Peijun's terrific new world
Artist: Weng Peijun (Feng)
Media: Chicken / duck / bird eggs, wood, glue, varnish
Size: 400 x 800 x 90 cm, 2005

Source: ArtLinkArt Interview, Artist's Gallery