THE odds against it are said to be 25 million to one – greater than winning the lottery jackpot – but that has not prevented an eggstraordinary feat by Blossom the hen.
The Light Sussex chicken, who regularly lays double yolked eggs, has now gone one better and delivered a triple yolker.
The achievement has shell-shocked her owners, Marc and Michelle Allison, of Pickering, who keep ten chickens in their back garden.
Marc, a retired policeman, said Blossom only laid eggs a couple of times a week, but they were often exceptionally large, weighing up to 130 grams compared with the usual 75 grams.
He said this particular egg – about three inches long – was not the largest she had ever laid, and Michelle had broken it in a pan to fry it, expecting perhaps a double yolker, and she was startled to see three.
Marc said other people who kept hens were also amazed, with one person who kept hundreds of hens having only one in 40 years.
He said: “With those odds, I could have won the lottery or been struck by lightning but, alas, it’s only three yolks in one egg.
“Funnily enough, I got four balls in the lottery last weekend and won about £55. I’d sooner have won that and got two yolks!”
A spokesman for the British Egg Information Service said the instance of eggs even being double yolkers was thought to be less than 0.1 per cent.
Asked what odds William Hills would offer on an egg having three yolks, a spokesman said one problem with an egg that had already been cracked might be proving it had had three.
“But if someone came in to our office with an uncracked egg, we would probably be comfortable to offer odds of up to 25,000 to one – but we might end up with egg on our faces!”
Mine’s a triple
BLOSSOM the Light Sussex hen is a bird on a mission. She regularly lays double-yolked eggs. But now she’s gone one better and laid a triple.
The odds against such a feat are said by some to be in the order of 25 million to one. William Hills would happily give odds of 25,000 to one.
Blossom’s owner, Marc Allison, a retired policeman from Pickering, admitted he would rather have won the lottery.
But Blossom’s clearly a chicken to be proud of. She only lays eggs a couple of times a week, Marc said: but when she does, they tend to be huge. Talk about putting all your eggs in one basket…
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