Woman surprised at what was inside giant egg

Emma Postlethwaite got her husband to film what happened as she cracked open a giant egg laid by one of her hens. She was stunned when she found the enormous 167g (5.9oz) egg which was laid by her hen Wendy on Thursday.



Emma, 33, who lives with husband and their two sons in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, said: "We have four hens which we bought back in October. We keep them in the garden and eat the eggs they lay. The big egg was laid by Wendy. She's an eight-month old Sussex hen. I opened the coop and saw it, it was just huge.





"I just couldn't believe how big it was. It was huge. I have not seen anything like this, I did not know it could happen really." The extremely rare occurence is known as a counter-peristalsis contraction. It is caused when the hen is in the process of forming an egg in her oviduct and another oocyte - the ovum or egg cell that becomes the yolk of the egg - is released too soon.




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Usually hens release an egg cell every 18 to 26 hours but sometimes a second one is released by the ovary before the first egg has completed its journey. It is thought that a shock or stress then causes a contraction which forces the first egg to reverse its course meaning the two come together and the shell from the second egg creates a giant egg around the first one.