what happens to the chic??

Question

This may sound weird and daft but it`s something that i have always wondered,so here goes...When hens lay eggs and we eat them what happens to the chic,were did it go??
Silly i know but always been to embarrassed to ask anyone face to face and wondered it for a long time,lol.thanx.

Answer 1

I used to wonder this so you're not alone!! The egg has to be fertilised by a **** rel before it can turn into a chick, the eggs we eat are not fertilised and so there's no danger of us eating a chick!

Answer 2

The egg is a container for the growth of the chick. If the egg is fertilised, the chick grows on the side of the yolk, using the yolk for food. The fertilised ovum does not start to grow until the egg is incubated so a fresh fertilised egg is no different from a fresh unfertilised egg. Hens don't start to incubate the eggs until the entire clutch is laid. This ensures they all hatch at the same time.

By the way, the young bird is a chick. "chic" is a word borrowed from the French and means "stylish, fashionable good taste".

Answer 3

Well, like others have said, commercially available eggs are just unfertilized ova. The hens are artificially stimulated to ovulate (=release an ovum from the ovary); the ovum is a very large cell with lots of vitellum (=egg yolk) that is there for nutrition of the embryo. While it travels down the oviduct, the ovum gets covered with albumin (=egg white), some thin membranes, and lastly the shell.

Thus, there's normally no chick in there.

However, in the case of farm/home-produced eggs, where the hens are kept with a rooster, sometimes you can get a fertilized egg. In those rare cases, there will be a small whitish/opaque disk on the yolk, with a tiny embryo. Fertile eggs are edible, but are not more nutritious.

Answer 4

An avian egg is comprised of a yolk, and albumin (the white). In the centre of the yolk there is a nucleus, or the developing factory as it were. The eggs we eat are usually unfertilised, meaning no sperm entered the factory to get the manufacturing done. In some cases, it is fertlised but they are harvested before anything begins to be made. What you eat is what would eventually rearrange and become a chic.
When an egg is fertlised, the nucleus sort of turns on - it now has genetic material to bring working. The nucleus begins to divide into cells, and continues to do so. These growing number of cells rearrange and take on specific funtions. Eventually, they begin to form chick.
The yolk is very lipid heavy - very fatty, sort of - which acts to feed the developing chic since it cannot be fed by the mother. It also stores waste, and in later stages, may act to draw in oxygen to help the chic 'breathe'. (An egg shell actuallyhas lots of pores to help get rid of bad gasses and pull in oxygen).
In short, there is no chic in what you eat, because a chic has not yet begun to be made. Sorry if this was long, I hope it may have helped.

Answer 5

The eggs you'd buy in a supermarket are unfertilised, so there's no chick in there.

I once bought eggs from an organic farm shop, left them a bit too long, decided to have an omelette and got a real shock - one of the eggs was fertilised and had some tissues and blood vessels in it (obviously when I put the eggs in the fridge I killed it). I went off eggs for quite a while!

Answer 6

Hi well you know the yellow bit in the egg, well that was the nuecleus, which means this is what would of become the chick, so you can say that this is the chick. And ifs obviously we eat it when we eat the egg.

Answer 7

Most of the eggs we eat are actually unfertilised, so there was never a chick in the first place.

If not, then as the hen said, as she watched the farmer eating scrambled eggs "There goes my crazy mixed up kid".

Answer 8

Same as humans - except human eggs don't get "ejected" with a shell ...