The Chicken, Egg and the Rooster

I will admit I'm not the brightest of the bunch at times and have been known to ask some pretty simple questions to which are both shocking and funny at the same time. If only I could have had an instant printout of what my partner was thinking at the time, although I can imagine. In these situations it is fine that he laughs at me, because after telling me the answers I often realize just how dumb the question was and laugh to.

 

I pretty much put it down to this; if I don't have any interest in something then I won't pay any attention to it let alone learn about it. I usually figure things out in the long run, even if it be through laughable situations. As they say; it's better late than never.

The Chicken, Egg….. And The Rooster  

The birds and the bees, funky business, whatever you want to call it, Male plus a Female equals a baby, in simple terms. Or so that's what I thought until last year at the ripe old age of 28.

I was at a friend’s house letting our children have a play date when my kids noticed she had a chicken coop and asked to collect the eggs for her. I've never lived on a farm or even close to one, so I’ve never really thought much into how things go. As my kids ran up and went inside the coop, it occurred to me there could be a rooster in there. I have no idea whether roosters get aggressive, but they don’t look very nice, wake everyone up at crazy hours and I wouldn’t be keen on jumping in the coop with one. For some reason, I always picture Roosters and Turkeys as pretty much the same thing, despite knowing otherwise. So I was also thinking “Gobble Gobble could be in there!” So I figured I had best ask.  

"Where's the rooster, is it inside the coop?” She said "We don't have one", which left me completely confused and obviously my “umm what face” made an appearance, as I began to ask more questions, because she started explaining things really slowly.

Me:  "Well where do you get your eggs from then?”

 

Friend:  "The Chickens… You don't need a rooster to get an egg, only to have a baby chicken”

 

Me:   “Yes, but eggs are baby chickens just not grown or hatched…aren’t they?”

 

By this point, I am beyond confused and full of questions, like a child would be on their first mortifying Birds and the Bees chat with their parents. Luckily my friend has a good sense of humour.

Friend: “Chickens lay eggs on their own without a rooster, it is just an egg. When you have a rooster it fertilizes the egg, making the baby chicken. We don’t want baby chickens, just eggs so we don’t have a rooster.”

 

 So there it was! At age 28 completely dumb founded finally having find out you don't need a rooster to get an egg. I always put it down to "A Mum and Dad equal a baby... Porky Porky". Simple. 

After our play date had finished I went home to tell my partner. Honestly shocked, I felt this was big news! I even continued to ask my friends and family for a while after just to see how many people actually this, rather than put it down to ‘getting funky’ like I did.

 

Arriving home I went inside and asked him. “Did you know you don’t need a rooster to get an egg?”…Boy did he laugh. When your partner calls you cute after asking a dumb question, you know he’s laughing at you. Of course I tried to defend myself comments about not ever living on a farm and such but they didn’t seem to help my argument.

 

The next night one of his mates came round and my chicken conversation came up. Telling the story, giggling away and then bam…The response wasn’t what he was expecting…

"You don't need the rooster?”

This time it was me laughing especially when his mate said "Well I never grew up on a farm". My partner of course was shocked and we all had a good laugh about it but at least I know now, better late than never. 

 

So my next question “What really came first? The Chicken or the Egg?”