How do chickens lay so many eggs?

Question

I’ve heard chickens can lay eggs every 1-2 days. It baffles me that something so (relatively) big can come out of them so often. How do they produce so many with such limited internal space? How many are developing in them at any given time?

In: 2833

Answer 1

Others have covered how it works biologically for modern chickens, but it is also interesting to understand how the ability to lay so many eggs evolved.

The answer? **Bamboo**

Wild chickens are from SE Asia where they have a lot of bamboo. The bamboo will infrequently drop a bumper crop of seeds. This is essentially chicken feed.

These birds evolved the ability to constantly lay eggs during the short time when the food supply was plentiful. Locals then realized that providing a constant food supply would cause the birds to lay daily all year long.

Here is a fun animated [YouTube lesson on the topic](https://youtu.be/_NSekwyS4Ns).