chicken or egg?

[springbulb81]

what came first the chicken of the egg?

[Hawkwalk]

The chicken came first. Chickens were invented in 1930 by a guy called Harland Saunders who was later made an honorary Kentucky Colonel in 1936.

After producing chickens in his factory for several years he managed to improve the design to enable them to self produce by way of eggs. This saved him a lot of production costs which enabled him to take his chickens abroad and expand his business.

The KFC brand lives on today and still tastes the same as it did all those years ago.

[kujawski]

No, no no. I disagree,

Colonel Kinder, ( from se germany)

invented za kinda eggz yah!

in ze 1920's yah.
from diz came dez proper chicken in ze 1930's yah!

[kujawski]

or should i have said nine nine nine

[Quizmonster]

On the off chance that this is a genuine question...

Most scientists believe that birds developed from reptiles. Since most reptiles to this day reproduce by laying eggs, it's rational to assume that the first bird-like creature came from an egg, too. (Genetic material remains constant throughout life, so the first creature that evolved into what we would consider to be a bird must have originally existed as an embryo inside an egg.) It would then have laid eggs and - over millions of years, perhaps - birds as we know them slowly developed and produced different species. The present-day chicken is one of these, but - 'way back when - its great-great-grand-daddy almost certainly came from an egg.
The egg pre-dated the bird, if you believe in evolution. Of course, fundamentalist believers in the Bible will say that God created all the creatures as creatures. In that case, the bird pre-dated the egg. Take your pick!

[wildwood]

Aha QM, but the ancestor of all chickens is the jungle fowl. No doubt some Asian natives at the time liked the taste of eggs and decided to keep some of the birds in captivity so that they wouldn't have to compete with the wild predatory animals for these delicious ovoid vessels. Eventually some Westerners came along and thought "that's a good idea" and took some of the birds home with them. It was no good taking eggs as they had no incubators in those days and until then they were known as the asian equivalent of jungle fowl. Some bright spark then found out that by selective breeding the birds could be made to lay eggs more frequent than a dozen or so in the Spring. The local grain store only stocked chicken feed, not jungle fowl feed, so they decided to call the birds chickens instead. This must prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the chicken was there before the egg.

*yawn*
Yes, there is not much happening here on AB today.

[springbulb81]

I dont think any of you have the first clue

[kwicky]

The chicken must have come first. The simple reason is the egg is sized and shaped to allow its exit from the internals of the chicken and without knowing the dimensions how could you possibly design an egg. Its the same with humans.

[chakka35]

It really is very simple:
The last in line before the chicken was a strain of what we will call pre-chicken. This strain of pre-chicken had not yet quite undergone the number of mutations required for it to be a separate species.
But then, one day, an egg from this pre-chicken contained another random mutation, either in the mother's egg or from the father's sperm, which tipped it over the edge into a new species which we call chicken. The first chicken came from that egg.
So the sequence is:
Pre-chicken..pre-chickens egg with that extra mutation...chicken.

So the egg came first.

[wildwood]

Sorry chakka, but all domestic chickens breeds are selectively bred from the southern Asian wild jungle fowl Gallus gallus. The wild jungle fowl looks very similar to a brown leghorn. This has recently been confirmed by DNA testing. There was no pre-chicken - all domestic chickens and jungle fowls are one and the same species. The jungle fowl (and thus our chickens) belong to the pheasant family.

Springbulb thinks I'm kidding, but the domestication process started over 5000 years ago and the bird has had many different names until the western world adopted it and some bright spark decided to call it a chicken - probably a minced form of another name.

[chakka35]

Stupid me, I lost the thread of my own logic there.
By definition, the egg from which the first chicken came was a pre-chicken egg.
That chicken then laid the first chicken egg. So the sequence is pre-chicken...pre-chicken egg with mutations...chicken...chicken's egg.
So the chicken came first. Sorry.

That logic applies, wildwood, whether that mutation wa accidental or brought about by selective breeding. The chicken must have had a predecessor.

[mibn2cweus]

In spite of anything that might have transpired in some prior event, in any future contest my money's on the chicken . . . unless a rooster also enters the competition.

[wildwood]

But don't you see chakka, at one stage the bird was called a jungle fowl or its asian equivalent, then that bird (species) had its name changed to chicken at some staged. The egg the chicken came from was a jungle fowl egg.

[RooraSondazu]

The chicken.

Penny for your thought. Would an egg be able to hatch and survive on it's own without one of it's own kind caring for it?

[ELVIS68]

Obviously the daddy chicken came first, in the mummy chicken

[bill preston]

this thread is brilliant!!!

well done to all and one for keeping me amused and well done to Elvis for making me finally spit my coffee out!!

[chakka35]

Of course I see, wildwood, because that is exactly what I said!
The egg the first chicken came from was not a chicken's egg; it was a pre-chicken's egg, whatever that pre-chicken was called.
So now we have the chicken - first on the scene. It lays an egg - the first chicken's egg - second on the scene.

[mibn2cweus]

All's well and good as long as we remember, whatever kind of beast laid the egg that hatched the first chicken, the egg came first, the word came here being used in the non-biblical sense.

In a related matter, why do chickens float on water when they obviously weigh more than eggs do?

[wildwood]

Chickens will float because despite having lost the ability to fly much, they still retain airsacs which are cavities reaching into empty crevices within the body, even in the wings. When birds inhale they suck in air which flows over the lungs and end up in the airsacs, on exhaling the relatively oxygen laden air goes over the lungs again thereby effectively nearly doubling the oxygen supply to the blood. This is needed as flying is a very strenious exercise. Birds breath by actual muscle(s) contraction, they do not have a diaphragm.

Chickens reared for food also have a fair amount of fat just under the skin and the air layer between the skin and feathers will also help to keep it afloat for a while. Well, you did ask Mibn.

[Clachair]

Wildwood, are you saying that eggs don't float because they can't breathe? Sounds logical to me.
Good job chickens don't lay their eggs while floating, otherwise there wouldn't be . . .
Damn, time for my nap.

[nix-j-c]

the egg. obviously. a chiken like creature layed a EGG which hatched into a chicken