Snake eggs are soft and pliable and feel leathery to the touch. Chicken eggs are hard and feel smooth to the touch. Both eggs are roughly the same shape.
In this article we’ll cover some of the similarities and differences between chicken eggs and snake eggs.
Snake Eggs vs Chicken Eggs: Similarities and Differences
| Snake Eggs | Chicken Eggs | |
|---|---|---|
| Hardness | Soft and pliable | Hard outer shell |
| Shape | Oval/Cylindrical | Oval |
| Color | White or off-white | White or Brown |
| Texture | Leathery | Smooth |
| Content | Yolk and Embryo | Yolk, Embryo and Albumen |
1. Hardness
A chicken’s egg has a hard shell. However, the snake’s egg is pliable. It almost feels like rubber. One could press a snake’s egg lightly, and it is not going to crack.
This difference comes down to the way snakes and chickens look after their eggs once they are laid.
Chickens brood their eggs. All birds incubate their eggs to give them warmth. Without incubation, the eggs will not develop, and the embryo inside them will die.
Because of this, the chicken egg evolved to have a hard shell. A hard shell protects the embryo from the weight of the hen.
By comparison, most snakes do not incubate their eggs, with a few exceptions such as pythons.
Since snakes do not need to incubate their eggs, there is no reason for evolution to make the eggshell hard. That is how the snake egg came about to be today. They are soft and leathery. You couldn’t smash them, but you could rip them if you had enough pressure.
Related Article: Are Snake Eggs Soft?
2. Shape
Chicken eggs are oval in shape. One side of the egg is thicker in diameter than the other side. Snake eggs are more cylindrical.
3. Color
Chicken eggs can be white or brown, whereas snake eggs are always white or slightly off-white.
Chickens, on the other hand, have either white or brown eggs depending on the species. It’s common for farmers to use the broiler breed, which lays white eggs.
Related Article: Snake Eggs vs Turtle Eggs
4. Texture
Chicken eggs are smooth, whereas snake eggs feel leathery or rubbery with small bumps.
5. Content
Both eggs have yolks and an embryo. However, the chicken egg also has a white part in it. Snake eggs do not have that.
A snake egg has a yolk that looks and feels like custard. Since there is no egg white, the only thing that is inside a snake egg is the yolk and the embryo.
For both chickens and snake eggs, it is possible for the egg not to be fertilized. It is not uncommon for snake pet owners to destroy some eggs that are not fertilized.
The chicken eggs that humans buy in the market are all unfertilized. These chickens eat laying mash, which induce the chickens to lay eggs. These eggs, despite not being fertilized, still have nutritional value.
Related Article: Snake Eggs vs Lizard Eggs
Do Snake Eggs look like Chicken Eggs?
No, they do not look the same at all. Snake eggs are more symmetrical and have a more beige appearance.
The egg of a snake is oblong on both sides. They are cylindrical, and both the ends look like a rounded bullet. Snake eggs are mostly off-white or beige.
Chicken eggs are mostly brown or white and more oblong shaped. One end is narrower than the other.
How to Identify Snake Eggs
The first step to identifying snake eggs is the shape. It is cylindrical, and the shapes on both sides are the same. Chicken egg, on the other hand, has different sizes on the sides. One end thicker than the other.
A snake egg is also soft to the touch. The shell is not hard as a chicken’s egg. As far as the size is concerned, snake eggs are small. Across all species of snakes, the typical size is only one inch in length.
This is not to say that all of them are small. Anacondas and pythons have large eggs. Pythons have eggs that can reach up to four inches in length.
Can a Chicken Hatch a Snake Egg?
No, a chicken cannot hatch a snake egg. The snake’s egg is going to burst if a chicken sits on it. Even a python, which is very careful around its egg, can damage its eggs.
Despite the snake’s eggs being pliable, they are not damage proof. Bird eggs are actually better because they have a hard shell.
Do Snakes Stay with their Eggs?
Some snakes, like the python, stay with their eggs. Most snakes leave their eggs. Some snakes like the cobra cover their eggs with leaves and dirt.
Cobras are the only snakes that cover their eggs to create a pseudo-nest like this.
Read More: Do Snakes Live In Nests?
Also, cobras guard their egg until the babies hatch. Some snakes look for an indentation on the ground. They lay their eggs there, and then they leave.
Do Snakes come from Eggs?
Yes and no. Many snakes lay eggs, and some give birth to live young. Despite this difference, all snakes form their eggs inside their bodies.
Also, the gestation period between an egg-laying and birth-giving snake is not that different. The average is 50+ days.
A snake that gives birth takes about 50 days to gestate prior to giving birth. On the other hand, it takes about 50 days for eggs to hatch once a snake lays them.
Snakes that do not lay eggs are ovoviviparous. These are animals that bridge the difference between egg-laying animals (oviparous) and those that give birth (viviparous).
In an ovoviviparous snake, the embryo develops inside an egg, but the eggs stay inside the mother’s body, and that is where they hatch.
Conclusion
Chicken eggs have a hard shell. They are hard because the shell protects the embryo from the hen’s weight. On the other hand, snake eggs are soft and pliable because the snake does not have to incubate its eggs.
Chicken eggs have an egg white while snake eggs do not. The snake egg’s yolk looks like custard, and it is sticky.
Stuart is the editor of Fauna Facts. He edits our writers’ work as well as contributing his own content. Stuart is passionate about sustainable farming and animal welfare and has written extensively on cows and geese for the site.