Colorado Reader 01/2016 | Page 7

Egg Production Most of the eggs we eat come from chickens. Parts of an Egg Hens are female Chalazae is the twisted white protein that holds yolk in place chickens. Hens lay eggs. It’s an all day event for a chicken to make an egg and lay it. 1. The hen is hatched with many tiny yolks in her body. One at a time, these will grow to full size. Shell Membranes Yolk 2. When a yolk comes to full size, it is released into a long tube called an oviduct. This release takes about 14 On average, a hen lays five eggs each week. On average, a person eats five eggs each week. Air Cell Shell FACT: A hen lays an egg every 26-28 hours. minutes. 3. As the yolk moves, a thick white layer of albumen also known as the Thick Albumen egg white, is placed around it. This takes about 3 hours. 4. The next stage takes about 1 hour and 15 minutes. Water is added to the Thin Albumen albumen to form a thin layer of white. 5. The formation of the egg shell is the last and longest step. This step can take as long as 20 hours. Pigment is added to the shell at the very end of this step making the egg shell white, cream or brown depending on the breed of the hen. 6. The hen lays the egg and the process Alphabetize the parts of an egg: air cell Germinal Disk Vitelline Membrane is a clear seal that surrounds the yolk ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ starts again. ____________________________________ www.growingyourfuture.com 7