Giant chicken egg reveals surprise
DARIEN — When Brent Wofsey and his family moved into their Darien home in 2012, just before Superstorm Sandy, he was happy to finally have the space to raise the chickens he’d always wanted.
“We now have a happy family of eight chickens. I let them all to free range during the day, and then put them back in the coop for the night time,” Wofsey said.
And one of them recently left the family a giant surprise.
Wofsey and his family were bowled over by the size of one of the eggs laid by the chickens — weighing in at 195 grams, or just under half a pound.
While Wofsey said one of his chickens tends to lay larger eggs, it has been “nothing close to this monstrosity of an egg.” They also aren’t sure which chicken specifically laid the egg, as their newer Isa Brown chicks all lay the same color.
The chickens eat normal chicken feed and whatever leftover scraps they have from the day. They also love when Wofsey spoon-feeds them peanut butter, he said.
The Guinness Book of World Records recorded the heaviest egg to have been laid by a hen is one of 454 grams (16 ounces), with a double yolk and double shell, laid by a White Leghorn at Vineland, New Jersey, on Feb. 25, 1956.
Upon cracking the egg, Wofsey’s 10-year-old daughter Kaitlyn was stunned to find both a traditional yolk and white — as well as another normal-sized chicken egg. The family filmed the big reveal.
According to backyard poultry.iamcountryside.com, the egg within an egg is the result of a process called a counter-peristalsis contraction. The contraction results in the egg reversing course and then being included in the formation of the new egg around it, resulting in a very large double egg.
Mike Pennington-Martel, of the Connecticut Poultry Association, said the egg inside the egg “happens more often than you would think and mainly with new egg layers.”
“Instead of your standard double yolk, another actual egg forms inside, so you get two eggs in one basically,” he said. “I’ve actually heard of three eggs in one — a fairy egg: A very small egg, then a huge outside egg. There are a lot of videos with people opening up a huge egg to see if it’s a double or triple yolk, but then to their surprise it’s an egg within an egg.”
Wilton’s Cannon Grange, which holds an annual old-fashioned agricultural fair, doesn’t have a record for largest egg, according to Grange board member Michele Clark.
The Grange has a video-log called “Chicken Tenders” about raising chickens co-hosted by Bil Mikulewicz, who said the largest
egg his chickens laid was 7.75 ounces, or about 219 grams.
“It was a double yolk and it occasionally occurs,” Mikulewicz said.
Many residents of Darien have found joy in raising animals and in particular, chickens over the last year. Susan Daly, who runs Darien Chick Talk, a Facebook group about raising chickens
specifically in Darien, said her membership is now at 136, which is double the size it was prepandemic. Daly said she had personally not experienced the egg inside an egg phenomenon.
After the big egg reveal, the Wofsey family made breakfast.
“We scrambled them up and ate them. I was full. It was a lot of egg,” Wofsey said.