A Little Double Clucker Magic May Be in the Air

Word around the farm lately has been that something magical may be about to happen. A few weeks back, an Olive Egger hen laid one of her HUGE eggs.

When this bird lays one of these eggs it’s a bit unnerving. The size of it is at least two large eggs put together and I’m honestly surprised that the hen isn’t walking straddle-legged after producing such an orb.

The egg is always a double-yolker and I’ve had to stop putting them in the egg cartons for my eggs to sell because the massive size of the egg doesn’t allow the carton to close completely.

Not to mention, a lot of folks may be freaked out by eating something that large.

So, I gathered this huge egg from the henhouse and set it aside while I washed the other eggs I’d collected that day. The thought entered my mind that maybe I could incubate this egg, but what would be the chances that 1. both yolks were fertilized and 2. that both would develop into chicks?

I was right at the end point of having the last of the 7 eggs hatch in the incubator and I just couldn’t figure out how this was going to work. Should I even attempt to have it work?

I sat the egg on the kitchen counter for a couple of days, turning it twice a day, as I watched the remaining chicks emerge from their shells in the incubator. If I put the huge egg into the incubator it would be almost 4 days after it had been laid (yet another negative factor to development).

There were 7 very happy, healthy, chicks in the brooder at this point and after I cleaned up the hatching mess (oh yes, trust me – there is a mess), sterilized the incubator and started to put things away I suddenly thought “oh what the heck, why not?”

In ten minutes time I had the incubator set back up, humidity raised, egg turner re-installed and the huge egg placed into the warm, moist air of the machine. I had to commit.  

I checked two days into the egg being in the incubator and only saw two yolks floating around beneath the shell. Though I knew it was way too soon to tell I was almost happy that nothing had developed. The burning questions of; what if only one chick survives and the other doesn’t make it, what if both chicks make it the full way before hatching and then don’t survive, what if one is born and has a problem because it was squeezed into a shell with another. Was I doing something wrong by trying? Would other farmers have tried this or was it wasteful?

I had to stop questioning and wait a few more days so I did.

Five days into the egg being in the incubator I removed the lid and shined the candeler light into the shell. There were two distinct “spider webs” that could be seen indicating that yes- there were in fact, two chicks growing inside this massive egg. TWINS!

Fast forward to now with only about 5 days to go before the twins scheduled “hatching date” and though I can’t tell if both chicks are still going inside the egg I know that something is growing and I’m staying hopeful that I’ll be one of the very lucky few who has twin chickens hatch out of an egg.

If you do a Google search on twin chickens hatching you’ll notice that the success rate is extremely low. Most of the time the chicks can’t get out and exhaust themselves fighting against one another to break out of the shell. It is with this guard that I’m anxiously awaiting the 27^th of March to see if I get to see two little beaks trying to get out.