Farmer's shock at bizarre item inside egg: 'Never seen anything like it'
Jennifer Hall thought it was a 'joke' after witnessing the 'crazy' sight. However unlikely, it could be possible.
A backyard chicken farmer is in disbelief after making a "crazy" discovery inside one of the eggs she kindly gave to her neighbours before leaving town.
Jennifer Hall said she was "shocked" when the elderly couple next door stopped by when she returned, claiming they found a small coin inside the egg after cracking it open. A photo shared by Hall shows the partially cooked egg inside a bowl with a small copper penny within it.
"At first I thought it was a joke and I was laughing about it, joking about how my chickens are laying money eggs," she told Yahoo News Australia.
While it's not entirely obvious in the photo provided, Hall claimed there was an imprint of the coin in the membrane — the clear film lining on the inside of the eggshell.
"The lady said, 'I know it's hard to believe but if you look right here', and she pointed to the inside of the egg, 'you can see the imprint where the membrane formed around the penny'. Sure enough, the impression was right there."
'Never seen anything like this'
Hall has been raising chickens for the past three years and said she's never seen it before. Meanwhile, the neighbours, who have 50 years in the chicken-rearing game, agreed, adding they too have "never in [their] life seen anything like this" either.
The Texas couple were attempting to cook some brekky when they cracked it into the hot skillet "only to find a penny inside".
"They got a big kick out of it. It was crazy," Hall said. "They said they're going to clean the penny off and keep it with them because it's got to be lucky."
'There's no way' this could happen, experts say
Looking at the image, Jason Nethercott from Talking Hens, Australia's "one-stop shop" for all things chickens, was sceptical at first and said "there is no way that this could happen without surgery".
"This one looks like a hoax as a penny would have to be inserted into the Oviduct before the shell was formed," he explained to Yahoo News Australia.
"It is more likely that a penny eaten by a hen would possibly (!) end up in the stomach (if it progressed past the crop), then through the intestines before being expelled with droppings. It is far more probable that the penny has simply been placed into the bowl with the cracked egg."
However according to Backyard Poultry, a magazine published by poultry experts, "you can have exceptionally weird things found in eggs".
"When a hen lays an egg, her vent is exposed to the environment. Sometimes things in that environment can attach to the moist tissue, and these foreign objects, such as small pebbles, feathers, and other debris in the nest, can make their way back up the oviduct," their website reads.
Further discussion led Nethercott to believe that "nothing is impossible" although it's "very, very unlikely" he concluded. "The object would need to be very lightweight" so feathers and small pebbles, he said.
Poultry expert Jessamy Miller agreed that while "nature is always full of surprises, it's hard to visualise a way this could happen".
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