Quote:
Originally Posted by DNSB
Vile devourer of potential chicken embryos!
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They are not usually fertile**. Some sorts of free range might be, or oddly quail eggs. Not regular hen eggs* as there are no cockerels. The male hatchlings are not raised as food for humans.
Actually was reading this week that some tiny critters deliberately start laying infertile eggs (which can have same appearance or be softer) after the brood is laid so as to provide extra emergency food.
Some species eat their siblings (hatched or not) if there isn't enough food. Tadpoles.
[*Beware of hatching an egg laid by a cockerel]
[** There are exceptions: One lizard species are all clone females. Snakes occasionally do it if there are no males. See Parthenogenesis.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenogenesis#Birds
Turkeys can do it but hatched birds are always male because they use the ZW system (all birds). Most mammals use the XY system so a Parthenogenic mammal can only be female, but it doesn't happen. Some bats use XO system also used by insects and arachnids (not just spiders).]