A family were shocked to crack open a giant chicken egg and discover another fully formed egg nestled inside.

The rare specimen is one of three huge eggs that have been laid by a chicken owned by the Oliver family in Faversham this week.

The Oliver family got a surprise when they cracked open the egg... (Video: Samantha Oliver)

Mum Samantha Oliver, 29, said: "I'm just amazed."

"I have 10 chickens and two often lay double yolks, but I've never seen anything like this before."

Miss Oliver got her chickens about eight months ago, to help keep her three boys Kieran, Henry and Thomas occupied in their rural village of Painters Forstal.

She heads out at about 8am every day, to feed the hens and collect eggs.

But on Sunday, she was shocked to discover a giant egg nestled in the chicken coop.

"At first I thought maybe it's two eggs, or one of the dummy eggs that you have to put in to encourage them to lay," she said.

"But I pulled it out and realised it was a real egg, and came running in to show the boys."

Miss Oliver found the egg measured a staggering 8.5in around the long axis. This is short of the record which is thought to be 12.2in, but startlingly larger than normal chicken eggs.

It weighed in at 152g - about three times the weight of a standard egg.

Two days later, she was surprised to again find another giant egg of exactly the same size. And this afternoon, she has discovered yet another.

"It's a fluke to get one that size, let alone [three] within a few days," she said.

"I don't know if that's what's going to happen every time from now on. They often lay every other day, so maybe tomorrow there will be another one."

On Tuesday night, she and her sons cracked open one of the massive eggs.

They were gobsmacked to find it contained not only a yolk and egg white - but a perfectly formed normal-sized egg too.

"My youngest son and my middle son were saying 'oh my God, on my God'," said Miss Oliver. "My eldest son was putting it all on TikTok.

"I'm just amazed. I know we've had double yolks before, but this had a lot of yolk and white inside as well as the egg.

"We didn't eat it, because I'm not 100% about it..."

This phenomenon is called a counter-peristalsis contraction, and occurs when an egg reverses its course in the hen's oviduct, and another egg forms around it.

Miss Oliver says it is tricky to know exactly which of her 10 chickens - all of whom have been given masculine names by her sons - laid the giant eggs.

But they suspect it to be a hen named Bruno, who has only ever lain double-yolkers.

Although initially concerned the huge eggs could have harmed the hen, Miss Oliver says Bruno is "fine".

"I got so worried, and thought 'oh my God I'm going to go out there and one of them is going to have died'," she said. "But they're all absolutely fine.

"Lots of people around here have had chickens for years and nobody we've spoken to has seen it before.

"It is quite a rare thing, and to have it happen [three times] is even more rare."

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