'My poor chicken': Manitoba hen's 'ginormous' egg weighs more than twice as much as average
Ashley Bartel's chicken Henrietta, a lavender Maran, normally lays eggs around 75 grams. (Submitted by Ashley Bartel)Manitoba farmer Ashely Bartel woke up to an eggs-quisite surprise Thursday morning.Her hen Henrietta may have made a bit of Manitoba egg-laying history, after the chicken laid a massive egg at Bartel's farmyard just southeast of Oakbank.It weighed 202 grams — more than double the weight of the average extra-large egg."When I got close I could see this ginormous egg on the ground. And my first thought was, 'Oh my goodness, this is such a huge egg.'"And second thought was, 'my poor chicken,'" Bartel told CBC on Friday.It's something Bartel has never seen before.While Henrietta — a lavender Maran who weighs about seven pounds herself — often lays large eggs that are typically about 75 grams, this one covered Bartel's entire palm and was about the size of a small mango, she said."It's just absolutely incredible," Bartel said.The 202 gram egg is more than double the size of a
Manitoba farmer Ashely Bartel woke up to an eggs-quisite surprise Thursday morning.
Her hen Henrietta may have made a bit of Manitoba egg-laying history, after the chicken laid a massive egg at Bartel's farmyard just southeast of Oakbank.
It weighed 202 grams — more than double the weight of the average extra-large egg.
"When I got close I could see this ginormous egg on the ground. And my first thought was, 'Oh my goodness, this is such a huge egg.'
"And second thought was, 'my poor chicken,'" Bartel told CBC on Friday.
It's something Bartel has never seen before.
While Henrietta — a lavender Maran who weighs about seven pounds herself — often lays large eggs that are typically about 75 grams, this one covered Bartel's entire palm and was about the size of a small mango, she said.
"It's just absolutely incredible," Bartel said.
Claire McCaffrey, a communications specialist for the industry association Manitoba Egg Farmers, said an egg that big was a surprise to her, too.
"It's definitely the biggest egg we've ever heard of here," she said.
There have been a couple of other egg-ceptionally large chicken eggs in Canada recently, although neither have measured up to Henrietta's.
Earlier this year, farmers in Leamington, Ont., found an egg nearly the size of an orange, weighing 175 grams.
Another egg laid in 2017 in Echo Bay, Ont., weighed 180 grams.
The heaviest chicken egg in the world, according to Guinness World Records, was laid in New Jersey in 1956, weighing 454 grams,
Scrambled eggs, anyone?
The size of an egg usually depends on the age of the hen, McCaffrey said.
Larger eggs, which tend to have two yolks instead of one, are typically laid at the beginning or end of a hen's reproductive life, when the hen goes through a lot of hormonal changes.
Henrietta is on the younger side, at just over two years old. Her egg had two yolks — one inside the first shell and another inside a separate egg within the first shell.
WATCH | See what's inside Henrietta's giant egg:
"The way that a chicken actually lays their egg is that they always have several eggs on the go," McCaffrey said.
"Maybe the one egg didn't quite form properly but did have a shell on it, and then the other egg started to form around it."
While McCaffrey said eggs with another inside are not normally as big as the one Henrietta laid, many Manitoba chickens have laid those.
But given just how big Henrietta's two-for-one egg was, McCaffrey said it's unlikely she'll lay another one that size.
And that might be for the best — Bartel said Henrietta seemed a bit sore Thursday, but was back to her usual self the next day.
"She gets all the credit, because she's the one that had to endure that," Bartel said.
As for the fate of the egg, Bartel said she'll turn it into a meal, since the chicks wouldn't be likely to survive if she tried to incubate them.
"Scrambled eggs sounds just fine with me."
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