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Ostrich eggs are the largest of all eggs, [4] though they are actually the smallest eggs relative to the size of the adult bird — on average they are 15 cm (5.9 in) long, 13 cm (5.1 in) wide, and weigh 1.4 kilograms (3.1 lb), over 20 times the weight of a chicken's egg and only 1 to 4% the size of the female. [5]
The fertilized egg cell is known as the zygote. [2] [5] To prevent more than one sperm fertilizing the egg , fast block and slow block to polyspermy are used. Fast block, the membrane potential rapidly depolarizing and then returning to normal, happens immediately after an egg is fertilized by a single sperm.
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.
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
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
Male chicks on a macerator conveyor belt, seconds before they are killed Chicks ground by a macerator. Chick culling or unwanted chick killing is the process of separating and killing unwanted (male and unhealthy female) chicks for which the intensive animal farming industry has no use.
Eggs of: ostrich, emu, kiwi and chicken. Egg size tends to be proportional to the size of the adult bird, [citation needed] from the half gram egg of the bee hummingbird to the 1.5 kg egg of the ostrich. Kiwis have disproportionately large eggs, up to 20% of the female's body weight. [18]
The only living mammals that lay eggs are echidnas and platypuses. In the latter, the eggs develop in utero for about 28 days, with only about 10 days of external incubation (in contrast to a chicken egg, which spends about one day in tract and 21 days externally). [11] After laying her eggs, the female curls around them.