A New Bedford Chicken Owner Finds a Rare Egg That Will Absolutely Blow Your Mind

This chicken egg.

It's something you'd see in a sci-fi movie and I can't wrap my brain around it.

In the far north end of New Bedford, a good friend of mine, Henry Bousquet, was going about his day collecting eggs from his backyard when he discovered a monstrous egg in one of his chicken coops.

"We have eight Rhody Reds all laying hens," Bousquet said. "They're sweet little girls that are healthy and consistent layers."

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Bousquet grabbed his camera to record what was inside of the egg. The video shows just how confused he was, and honestly, who could blame him?

Apparently, according to Backyard Poultry, a "chicken 101" website of sorts, this phenomenon has quite the name:

"A counter-peristalsis contraction is when a second oocyte is released by the ovary before the first egg has completely traveled through the oviduct and been laid. The release of a second oocyte into the oviduct system while a first oocyte is in the eggshell-gland portion of the oviduct (the eggshell gland is also called the uterus in a hen and is where the shell is deposited over the egg) causes a contraction. This counter-peristalsis contraction, resulting from the premature release of a second oocyte into the oviduct, causes the first egg in the eggshell gland to reverse its course and be pushed back up to the top of the oviduct. Consequently, the first egg (i.e. the previously released egg which was in the lower portion of the oviduct before reversing course) is typically added to the oocyte that was just released into the oviduct. The second oocyte then travels down the oviduct and has albumen and a shell deposited over it and the first egg together. This creates a very large egg for your poor hen to lay. Ouch! When you crack open such an egg, there is normal yolk and whites as well as another fully formed, normal-sized egg inside."

In other words, this poor hen had quite the time pushing and I can't help but feel for the gal.

The average chicken owner will never in their life see or experience an egg like this, making Bousquet's chicken perhaps the rarest egg layer on the SouthCoast.