Real Life Science

We have 4 hens in our backyard (well in a makeshift pen). We had been given about 6 fertilized eggs by a friend several weeks back and one of our hens named Charlie took immediately to sitting on them. They take approximately 21 days to hatch (which was roughly Friday), but one by one we'd find an egg separated from the others Charlie was sitting on. Each was the one that Charlie discarded knowing (somehow) that a chicken was not developing. Each time we'd crack open the discarded egg to see if a chicken had been developing, but there were never any signs of a chicken. Just a bad egg. We were down to one final egg and found it discarded this morning (unfortunately). We figured the eggs either weren't fertilized or something else happened to them. So we figured this would be the case with this final egg too, but to our amazement this little egg had a fully formed baby chicken inside when I cracked it open. It had obviously been discarded because it was already dead. What's amazing is that it had taken the entire space of the egg (and it's a wonder these little creatures can even maneuver to peck their way out). So, no little chicken, but we were close. We'll have to try again.