Does Every Egg In Pre-packaged Boxes Have The Potential To Hatch?
Eggs are widely enjoyed but not many people like to think about what they really are — a part of the bird's development. This was especially brought to the fore recently when a young boy raised the question of whether every box of eggs would hatch chicks after he successfully hatched a duckling from a Waitrose egg using an incubator.
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William Atkins, a 14-year-old schoolboy, roused tension when news of how he curiously set out to ascertain whether store-bought eggs would hatch. Armed with a €40 incubator, Atkins purchased half a dozen free-range duck eggs from Waitrose for his experiment.
Three days later, he made the shocking discovery of a beating heart when he shone a torch onto one of the eggs; three weeks later the egg started to rock; and then, 28 days on from the start of his experiment, a duckling hatched.
While this was great news for William and Jeremy, the duckling, it has created controversy among commercial egg sellers. Mark Diacono, the author of The Chicken & Eggs River Cottage Handbook says that a greater fraction of store-bought eggs are not fertilized.
Commercial producers reportedly eliminate male chicks at birth to prevent fertilization which seems to have been the case as discovered by Atkins. Clarence Court, the company that produced William’s duck eggs asserts that the egg may have been fertilized by a rogue male, that may either be from the wild or have been accidentally allowed to enter the flock by their sexing experts.
Lucy Egerton, a British Egg Industry Council spokeswoman explains that this is a rare occurrence in a commercial laying flock but that it could happen in a backyard flock.
Furthermore, Margaret Manchester, the managing director of Durham Hens, relays that even a fertilised egg is not a living creature. She said that a fertilised egg is safe for consumption and that it doesn’t have any peculiar taste.
Manchester also asserts that a blood spot is not the tell-tale sign of a fertilized egg. Instead, you can spot a fertilised egg by looking at the yolk: in place of a usual small white spot, you will see a ring.
Overall, Mark Diacono says that although this controversial subject is tied to potential rather than reality, it is a reminder that eggs capably promote life. Still, that doesn't mean they shouldn't be eaten. In Diacono's words: "everyone has to draw the line on what they will and won’t eat."
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