Even after raising her own chickens for more than 20 years, Maria Gloria de Souza was blown away by the present her egg-laying hen had left behind. The 64-year-old woman found the gift one day, as she went into the chicken coop to see how her beloved farm creatures were doing. She stopped in her tracks when she noticed a huge egg under one of the hens; she was baffled and never experienced an image like this one. She felt badly for the poor hen, who must have endured pain while delivering the gargantuan egg.
Maria had removed the triple-size egg from underneath the chicken, so it was still warm, when she realized she was holding something quite special and unusual. She brought the odd egg into her home and decided to weigh it; it came out to 6.5 ounces. Something was beyond the shell but what? So, Maria cracked the egg and got ready to see the gift inside. She poured the contents into a bowl, and among the yellow and clear white liquid, found another whole egg inside! How could that be? She had never seen an egg inside an egg before.
This was most unusual for a woman in Catalao, central Brazil to find, especially since the other egg inside was perfectly intact. She took photos of the unique discovery, and her story was presented here on YouTube. This rare condition is believed to develop when the hen is in the process of forming an egg in her reproductive system called the oviduct. Another ovum or egg cell becomes the yolk of the egg and is released too soon from the ovary. It reminds some like the nesting doll of an egg. The scientific word for this poor hen’s condition is known as “counter-peristalsis contraction.”
