I think Iman is hide eggs from me again .
She likes to do that a few time a twelvemonth , and seeking out her stash becomes an Easter egg hunt as the hubby and I scour the chicken ’ 2,500 square foot of foraging blank space for their secret nest . ( Last summer ’s searchyielded almost a dozen eggs ! )
So I was very confused the other day after I skipped a daytime of ballock collecting and , in three dissimilar locations , cease up finding anImanegg , aKimoraegg , and a mystery orchis that count like a bantam had amount and position it for us .
I can always tell which of my ladies has put down an egg because the colors and sizes are so clear-cut .
But this teeny tiny egg was a mystery . It was one - third the size of a standard Gallus gallus egg , and not quite pinkish ( like Iman ’s ) but not quite dark-brown ( like Kimora ’s ) .
It was about the size of a quail egg , but I knew we did n’t have quail in the cubic yard .
So what are tiny chicken eggs all about?
midget eggs like these are know as wind eggs , Wiccan ball , dwarf eggs , fairy eggs , or more affectionately , fart nut . I guess if a chicken farted , this is what would theoretically add up out !
They ’re usually yolkless if a biddy has n’t liberate a yolk yet by the time her body starts producing the shell .
In those case , a bit of reproductive tissue breaks off inside the oviduct and triggers the organisation of an egg by tricking the hen ’s body into thinking the tissue paper is a egg yolk .
A misfire , if you will .
Mine , however , had a miniature yolk when I cracked it undecided — more like a golden squiggle in a sea of ballock white .
Yolkless eggs sometimes come out glowering or lighter . Because of the unnatural rhythm , they may expend more or less fourth dimension in the hen ’s shell gland pouch , which bank pigments on the scale in the final stage of egg making .
This would explain why my fairy nut was a slightly different shade of brown ( or pink ) … and I never did reckon out who repose it .
Fart egg folklore
In the olden days , yolkless bollock were sometimes call cock orchis , since without a vitellus , the egg was n’t viable .
This lead many to believe that the distorted eggs were laid by roosters ( rooster ) and they were the work of the devil .
Superstition had it that if a toad frog or a snake incubated the cock ’s nut , a winged wolf called a cockatrice ( which behave the header of a cock and the body of a serpent ) would come out .
Its maleficent power include turning people to stone and destroy them with its deadly regard .
The only way to rid of the evilness was to lunge the unhatched egg over the roof of the family household without permit it hit the household . ( I took my probability by keep it ! )
Can you eat fart eggs?
These day , we be intimate that fart egg normally occur in young , newly laying hens , whose torso are still attempt to line up to the rhythm of laying . In other words , they ’re learning to ovulate .
Older hens may now and again rest fart ball if something disturbed their generative cycles ( such as newchicken feed , flock integrations , hurt , change in the pecking rescript , abig move , or other environmental factors ) .
Fart eggs are an ( lovely ! ) anomaly but nothing to worry about . After such a hiccup , a hen should return to laying normal - sized eggs again the next day .
Fart egg are also edible , and it makes me giggle to intend I ’m eating something with the word “ fart ” in it . I fried mine and it was no different than a large egg … just in a sharpness - sized version !
This post updated from an clause that in the beginning look on August 4 , 2014 .
