Everything is a matter of perspective.
The answer depends on the unique way that you are looking at the problem.
Math and science questions have definitive answers – your perspective doesn’t matter in those cases.
But in philosophical and human behavior questions (and chicken behavior questions) – it’s all about one’s perspective.
The right answer for you may be the wrong answer for the next guy. And that guy’s right answer may be the wrong answer for you … and vice-versa.
So my answer to the historical circular cause and consequence question is strictly based on my first-hand experience. With that caveat, I can now definitively give an answer to the age-old question: which came first … the chicken or the egg?
My story begins when I moved to the country house about twenty-two months ago. One of the property’s outbuildings was an eighty-year-old, nine-by-twelve-foot chicken coop. It was fully equipped with roosting bars, nesting boxes, and several broken feeder/watering containers. There was evidence that both chickens (I personally saw feathers) and eggs (I personally saw broken eggshells) had inhabited the building.
This evidence was proof that both chickens and eggs had previously been present. But I wasn’t able to conclusively determine if one had preceded the other. Which came first was still a mystery.
Now let us fast-forwarding to the middle of May 2011. I brought home eight pullets to inhabit my coop. Pullets are eight- to ten-week-old hens. In chicken lives, consider pullets as adolescents … or teenage chickens. I calculated that my hens were born about March 1, 2011. Using the standard egg-laying rule of thumb of twenty weeks, I estimated my girls would start laying eggs about the end of July.
July ended and August began – no eggs. Watching the girls closely during the mid and last weeks of August, I was convinced eggs would arrive at any moment. I’d enter the chicken coop each morning and each evening in anticipation – still no eggs.
August ended and September began – nary an egg was to be found.
Maybe a critter was stealing them before I could collect them? Maybe my girls were laying their eggs in some bushes outside the coop?
I called my chicken advisor, the supplier of the chicks, and stepmom to all things chicken – Megan, too, was baffled. She told me, “All of the other new owners of that spring’s hatching had reported their hens were producing” – everyone else had eggs.
I was beginning to think that I only had chicken pets – they ranged the yard, left their deposits on the walkways, but would never produce any eggs.
Then, one glorious evening around September 7th, I was putting the girls to bed and lo and behold, I found my first egg. It was undersized and the shell wasn’t hard. It was soft and squishy (yuck) – but I had an egg!
One week later, all the girls had laid their first eggs – all healthy, all producing, and all the eggs were delicious.
Throughout the fall my flock was productive. Around the first of December, they mostly shut down production due to the shorter days. Many people mistakenly believe that chickens stop producing due to the colder temperatures. But I’ve come to learn that winter production is mostly a length of daylight issue. Artificial light will keep the eggs coming. I opted to give them a rest.
And like clockwork during the first week of February, the eggs started to again arrive daily.
So based on my personal observations and first hand experiences, I’ve reached a conclusion: The chicken comes first! In fact, the chicken comes way before the egg.
And, as further proof, not a single one of my hen’s eggs has produced a chick … although many tasty omelets have appeared – and disappeared.
So once more based solely on experience, on my story – I can conclusively state that the chicken precedes the egg. The chicken comes first!
P.S. Don’t tell any roosters this story … if a rooster finds out and makes his way to my coop … all bets are off.
Next Blog Title: GUMP! What’s Your Sole Purpose in this Army (or Life)?
Next Blog Date: March 26, 2012