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People in Southeast Asia began harvesting chicken eggs for food by 1500 BCE. [2] Eggs of other birds, such as ducks and ostriches, are eaten regularly but much less commonly than those of chickens. People may also eat the eggs of reptiles, amphibians, and fish. Fish eggs consumed as food are known as roe or caviar.
Because male chickens do not lay eggs and only those in breeding programmes are required to fertilise eggs, they are considered redundant to the egg-laying industry and are usually killed shortly after being sexed, which occurs just days after they are conceived or after they hatch. [3]
Cock: a fertile adult male chicken [6] [7] Cockerel: a young male chicken [8] Hen: an adult female chicken [9] Pullet: a young female chicken less than a year old. [10] In the poultry industry, a pullet is a sexually immature chicken less than 22 weeks of age. [11] Rooster: a fertile adult male chicken
Oviparous animals laying eggs with thick calcium shells, such as chickens, or thick leathery shells generally reproduce via internal fertilisation so that the sperm fertilises the egg without having to pass through the thick, protective, tertiary layer of the egg. Ovoviviparous and viviparous animals also use internal fertilisation.
Eggs of various birds, a reptile, various cartilaginous fish, a cuttlefish and various butterflies and moths. (Click on image for key) Diagram of a fertilized chicken egg in its ninth day. Membranes: allantois, chorion, amnion, and vitellus/yolk. Six commercial chicken eggs — view from the top against a white background
Eggs of various animals (mainly birds) Oviparous animals are animals that reproduce by depositing fertilized zygotes outside the body (known as laying or spawning) in metabolically independent incubation organs known as eggs, which nurture the embryo into moving offsprings known as hatchlings with little or no embryonic development within the mother.
A dual-purpose chicken is a type of chicken that may be used in the production of both eggs and meat. [42] In the past, many chicken breeds were selected for both functions. However, since the advent of laying and meat hybrids, industrial chicken breeding has made a sharp distinction between chickens with either function, [ 43 ] so that certain ...
Broiler breeder farms raise parent stock which produce fertilized eggs. A broiler hatching egg is never sold at stores and is not meant for human consumption. [9] The males and females are separate genetic lines or breeds, so that each line can be selected for optimal traits for productivity in either females or males, rather than a single line in which a compromise is reached between female ...