Woman hatches three ducklings from eggs she bought at the supermarket

It’s far too easy for us to feel detached from our food. Our supermarkets might be filled with more meat than Joe Exotic’s shopping trolley, but it’s still difficult to remember that it comes from actual animals. It’s about time we had a healthy reminder of the circle of life. 

Thankfully for everyone who’s grown too comfortable with the food chain, a British woman has shown everyone that many of our favourite foods are very much alive. As part of an experiment prompted in part by lockdown boredom, 29-year-old Charli Lello has amazed the internet by hatching three ducklings from eggs bought at her local supermarket. Omelettes suddenly seem far less appealing. 

The Hertfordshire resident told the BBC that she got the idea after watching a video in which someone successfully incubated and hatched shop-bought quail eggs. As she explained to reporters:

“While I was in Waitrose, I saw the duck eggs and thought maybe they would work as well. I was so excited for them to hatch but I still had in the back of my mind that these are supermarket eggs.

“They have been collected, bashed around on a delivery truck, then rattled around on a trolley onto a shelf, picked up and put down by who knows how many people, so they still might not go all the way.”

Watch This Rescue Duck Swimming In The Ocean:

Such instances of a chick or duckling being raised from an egg intended for commercial consumption are extremely unusual. Speaking to the media after the remarkable story broke, a spokesperson for Clarence Court Farms – the company who produced the eggs – declared:

“It is a feat of remarkably slim odds that a duckling has been hatched. But we acknowledge that it’s not impossible.”

Lello revealed that it took a month of careful incubation for the eggs to successfully hatch. However, despite describing her brood as the “cutest little bundles of fluff,” she declared that she would not be repeating the experience, as were she not on furlough she would be unable to give the chicks the attention that they deserve. Nonetheless, Lello’s successful hatching just goes to show that we’re not as far removed from our food as we might think.