The delightful fragrance of sizzling bacon fills the kitchen as freshly cracked eggs plop into the frying pan  Along with whole wheat toast topped with English marmalade, few breakfasts are more delicious than eggs fresh from the backyard coop

Before those eggs enter the pan, they’ve undergone a remarkable journey that starts in the hen’s ovary

When a female chicken hatches she has two ovaries but one gradually shrinks and becomes unfunctional  The other gradually matures to generate all the eggs she’ll lay  When she’s about 20 weeks old, give or take a few weeks, a hen begins ovulation  It is