Rachael Ward and her fiance Jamie were preparing their weekend breakfast when they cracked open an egg and received a shock.
Inside the unassuming chicken egg was another tiny, fully formed egg.
“Jamie cracked the egg and said, ‘What’s that?’,” Ms Ward said.
“At first, I said, ‘Oh, it’s a double yolker’, and then I touched it, and it was a tiny little egg.
“[I was] just amazed that it was an egg inside an egg.”
Ms Ward says the tiny egg, found inside an egg, weighs just two grams. (Supplied: Rachael Ward)
The couple weighed and measured the egg, which was more than 1 centimetre long and weighed just 2 grams.
Ms Ward said the egg it came from was slightly smaller than a regular-sized chicken egg.
They have held onto the tiny egg, but have not looked inside.
“I’m not game to crack it open … it could be a yolk, or just the white, I’m not sure,” Ms Ward said.
The Coffs Harbour resident bought the egg from local hobby farmer Gerald Gauci.
The tiny egg sitting within the shell in which it was contained. (Supplied: Rachael Ward)
He has about 100 chickens and sells eggs at his farm gate.
Mr Gauci said the hen responsible for the double egg remained a mystery.
“It’s amazing … never in my life have I seen anything like that … I am 60 years old and grew up with chooks, my father used to show chooks,” he said.
“I’ve seen eggs before coming out maybe soft inside a shell, but this one is a fully formed little egg … in a hard little shell.”
Rachael Ward says they’ve kept the egg, but haven’t cracked it open. (Supplied: Rachael Ward)
How did it happen?
The phenomenon of an egg forming inside an egg does occur occasionally.
Other reported examples have been found in Australia, although in those cases, a regular-sized egg was enclosed inside a much larger egg.
In this case, the enclosed egg was notably small.
Brian Alley, a poultry breeder based at Lorne on the NSW Mid North Coast, said it was a rare occurrence.
An egg inside an egg can occur after two yolks have been released, and one, already with a formed shell, moves near the other one at some point while the second shell is still being formed.
“It normally happens due to the ovulation of the chook,” Mr Alley said.
“She drops one down [into the oviduct] to put a shell down, and she’s dropped two at the same time, and shell has formed around both of them … one has gone inside the other [during the forming phase].
“You very rarely hear of it — I’ve been around livestock for 69 years, and I’ve never seen one.”
