The chicken or the egg?

[bigsister]

I have always benn intrigued by birds (and chickens) eggs. How they are formed I mean. Does the shell form as they are being laid, or is it already there. How come it doesn't crack when its being laid?

[Ethel]

http://science.howstuffworks.com/question231.h tm

[LazyGun]

That looks to be an excellent site Ethel :)

[Ethel]

That howstuffwork site looks simplistic but does tend to give the answers!

Very helpful for computer techie problems too - it uses 'plain English' and good links.

:)

[Disposition]

The egg. What we current portray as a chicken, evolved from chinken-dodos or whatever came before it. As evolution progressed, millions of eggs came out of millions of what aren't quite yet what we know as chickens. So eventually as it evolved, the first (what we know as a) chicken egg was laid. Thus eventually cracking open to reveal a chicken.

Or you could just be simple and say eggs were around long before chickens. They just wern't chicken eggs.

[doglady]

Egg shells are in the strongest shape possible. If you squeeze a raw egg in one hand, you won't be able to break it (try it in a plastic bag, so you can't say it was psychological - you didn't want to get egg on your hands!!).

It doesn't crack when it's being laid because chickens are made that way!! They stretch. Otherwise there wouldn't be any chickens, because the first ones would have broken their eggs, and not made any more baby chickens.

[bigsister]

All very good - but - how does a tiny bird like a bluetit, manage to have 6 or 7 eggs inside that tiny little body?
Sorry to keep on about it.