The age-old question, "Which came first: the chicken or the egg?" has purportedly been solved by a team comprised of a geneticist, a philosopher, and a chicken farmer.

[T]he reason is down to the fact that genetic material does not change during an animal's life.

Therefore the first bird that evolved into what we would call a chicken, probably in prehistoric times, must have first existed as an embryo inside an egg.

Professor John Brookfield, a specialist in evolutionary genetics at the University of Nottingham, said the living organism inside the eggshell would have had the same DNA as the chicken it would develop into.

Professor David Papineau, who teaches philosophy of science at King's College London, and poultry farmer Charles Bourns, concur.

By a felicitous coincidence, this news comes out on the same day as the latest annual release of Poultry and Egg Statistics from Statistics Canada.  Here are a few highlights.

The consumption of poultry has stabilized over recent years, reaching 13.7 kilograms per person in 2005, a slight increase of 1.5% from 2004 and well above the 11.6 kilograms consumed per person 10 years ago.

Egg production, which stood at 586.8 million dozen in 2005, increased 5.9% from 2004.

Annual egg consumption has stabilized in recent years and was pegged at 12.9 dozen per person in 2005, following a slight decrease in 2004.

Download the complete 41-page report in pdf format here.  It's fascinatin'.