Facts About Eggs
China produces most eggs, at about 160 billion per year. In the US, about 260 million hens produce more than 65 billion eggs per year. A hen can lay about 250 eggs per year. An egg shell has as many as 17,000 pores over its surface. There are 150 species of chicken. Chicken are descendants of the red jungle fowl (gallus gallus spadiceus) that lives in Asia. In Mergentheim, Germany, if someone falls gravely ill, that person ties a white thread around an egg and places it into a fire. If the shell turns black in the flame, death is not far off. Occasionally, hens lay eggs with imperfect shells or without shells altogether. In England, such eggs are traditionally called "wind eggs," from the belief that the hen laying them had been impregnated not by the rooster but by the wind. In 1474, legal proceedings were instituted at Basel against a rooster accused of laying an egg for purposes of witchcraft.