Connecting the Dots

I didn't have a problem with that Wiki article. I learned what I wanted to know, which was the name of the white stringy thing that would have been an embryo if it had been fertilized and incubated. The Latin part was unimportant, but it would have been important if one source called it the "germinal spot" and another source called it something else. If both sources used the Latin term "nucleolus", then I would know that they were both talking about the same thing, even if they called it by different names in English. That's why scientists and lawyers use Latin terms you know. Latin is a "dead language", which means that nobody speaks it anymore, so it doesn't evolve like English, French, or German. "Germinal spot" might mean something different in English a hundred years from now, but "nucleolus" will always mean "nucleolus".

This is not school. There will be no test at the end, and no grade given that will keep you out of Vietnam. We are learning this stuff because we are interested in it, or maybe it's because we like talking to each other and this is just one more thing to keep the conversation going. Do you ever wonder that we have been conversing like this for years and we never seem to run out of things to talk about? Is that because we have such eclectic interests, or is it because we just like to talk to each other? I know that I am more interested in politics now than I was before because now I have somebody with whom to discuss it who knows more about it than I do and is willing to explain it to me from another perspective. Most people only talk politics with people who agree with them. What fun is that? Similarly, if we want to increase our knowledge about chickens and eggs, we could read volumes about it and memorize all the facts like they used to make us do in school, or we could speculate from what we know to what we don't know, connect the dots if you will, and stop to look something up when we hit a snag. The latter sounds like more fun to me.

From direct observation, we have established that chickens have more than one egg in their bodies at a time, and that these eggs are lined up in sequential order from the newest to the oldest, the oldest being the one in position to come out next. It is only this oldest egg that has developed a hard shell, the rest of them have soft membranes that will harden into a shell when their time comes. Since we know that hens will lay eggs whether or not those eggs have been fertilized, we can assume that the hardening of the shell is not dependent upon prior fertilization of the egg. It seems unlikely that the sperm cells from the rooster could penetrate that hard shell, so the egg must be fertilized before the shell hardens. For this to happen, the hard shelled egg would need to be expelled, making the next egg in line, which still has a soft shell, accessible to the sperm cells that will be coming in from the same orifice that the eggs will ultimately pass through on their way out. If that hard shelled egg at the end did not get fertilized, it would still need to be expelled to make way for the next egg in line, otherwise no eggs from that chicken would ever be fertilized again. Collateral evidence is the specific call that a hen makes right after she has laid an egg, and also when she desires the rooster's presence for any other reason. What she is saying, in chicken language is, "Hurry up, Big Boy, before the shell on the next egg gets hard on you!", or words to that effect.

Domestic chickens are the only bird I know of that lay eggs all year long unless their health or comfort is sufficiently impaired to prevent it. This may be attributed to the fact that chickens have been selectively bred for centuries to maximize egg production. Now that I think of it, I think pigeons lay eggs all year too, but they only lay two eggs and then sit on them. A chicken will lay an egg a day, sometimes more, day after day after day, but not all chickens will sit on eggs. Sitting on eggs might have been lost in the selective breeding shuffle, since most hatcheries gather the eggs each day and put them into artificial incubators to attain a better survival rate. On the other hand, this "designated sitter" behavior may have come all the way from Africa, where chickens were first domesticated. In the old fashioned semi-natural state in which chickens were kept before the advent of the modern egg factory, and are still kept by hobby farmers, chickens are social animals, with a pecking order and everything. Could it be that their wild ancestors developed a collective way of hatching their eggs? I have observed that chickens like to lay their eggs right alongside eggs that have already been laid. I have also seen chickens "give" their eggs to a setting hen. They would crowd into the nest box with the setting hen, lay their egg, and leave. Then the designated sitter would pull the new egg under her with her chin, and add it to the pile she already had.

I have been told that a mother hen will turn her eggs over once a day, and go outside and get her breast feathers wet in the dewy morning grass so that, when she sits back down, the eggs will be dampened. Eggs in artificial incubators are turned and lightly misted with water each day to duplicate this behavior, which is essential for the development of the chicks. Once the chicks hatch out, they follow their mother around and learn how to be chickens from her, although she doesn't feed them directly like some other birds do. Day old chicks from the hatchery are capable of eating and drinking on their own, although it is recommended that you watch them for awhile to make sure, and give a little encouragement to the slow learners. Another service the mother hen provides is keeping her chicks warm by "taking them under her wing". When you raise birds from the hatchery, you must provide a heat lamp or artificial brooder that does pretty much the same thing.