I know I mentioned that in a recent week of house-sitting in LA. one of my chores was feeding and watering three chickens.
I may have also mentioned the conversation that ensued between me and my friend Patrick as I contemplated the prospect.
“Patrick: So will they wake you in the morning with their crowing?
Me: Um…I think that’s guys. Aren’t chickens female? Yeah, they have to be, cause they lay eggs. I don’t think they make noise.
P: But how do they lay eggs without a male?
Me: Good question! I’m not sure…Do they lay the egg and then the male…I don’t know, injects something into the egg and that’s how it’s fertilized? Or are some of the eggs fertile and some not?…Wouldn’t that be gross if you cracked an egg and there was an embryo in there?”…
It went on in this pathetic fashion for a while as we cracked up at our vast ignorance Then I went to LA, and watched the chickens (who were not “broody”, i.e. not laying at the time) and thought no more about it.
Then I took a book out of the library called Infinite Life: The Revolutionary Story of Eggs, Evolution and Life on Earth by Howard Jules. Which was engagingly written and had to have required masses of research, and that I kind of skimmed.
What grabbed me there was an episode called “The Great Dying” (again, who knew?) that took place approx. 251.9 million years ago, the most severe of the the “Big Five” mass extinctions of the Phanerozoic era. Wiped out were 57% of biological families, 83% of genera, 81% of marine species and 70% of terrestrial vertebrate species. Also a TON of insects. Isn’t that sad??
The whole notion of eggs, though, got me thinking about those chickens. How DO they make eggs and how ARE they fertilized? I wondered.
Well! Does everyone know this but me? It is a TOTAL MIRACLE!
I learned about it from a Purina feed page about caring for your poultry called “How Do Chickens Lay Eggs? Understanding Your Egg-Laying Chickens.”
I mean read it for yourself but suffice it to say that an egg, a whole gorgeous perfectly-formed egg with a thick protective shell, is formed in a mere 24 hours within the body of a chicken!
This was my favorite part: “Egg bloom is added and egg emerges (seconds):
The formed egg travels to the vaginal area where egg bloom is added to the shell as the egg passes through. Egg bloom, or the cuticle, is a protective coating that works with strong shells to protect the egg from bacteria. A natural lubricant is also added to the shell for a safe exit through the cloaca.”
(FYI, the chicken doesn’t have a separate vagina and anus like some people we know but just the one opening, the cloaca, through which as well the rooster does his thing (let’s not picture this too closely) and that is how an egg is fertilized).
All of which stands to reason as even I know that human females of child-bearing age produce eggs each month and if they don’t hook up with a spermatazoa they just kind of dissolve. Or something like that.
Whoops: wrong again! “Current knowledge indicates that females are born with their entire lifetime supply of gametes. At birth, the normal female ovary contains about 1-2 million/oocytes (eggs). Females are not capable of making new eggs, and in fact, there is a continuous decline in the total number of eggs each month. By the time a girl enters puberty, only about 25% of her lifetime total egg pool remains, around 300,000. Over the next 30-40 years of a female’s reproductive life, the entire egg supply will be depleted. Although no one can know with absolute certainty the number of eggs remaining within the ovaries at any given time, most women begin to experience a significant decrease in fertility (the ability to conceive a child) around the age of 37. At the time of menopause, virtually no eggs remain.”
Like I said–miracle. Think of the mysteries we carry about in our bodies (never mind our minds, nervous systems, spirits, and souls)–and that our whole lives, are veiled from sight.
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