Chicken in Kazakhstan Lays Egg with Religious Motif

ALMATY (Digital Dementia News Services) - A chicken in a Kazakh village has laid an egg with the word "Allah" inscribed on its shell, state media reported Thursday.

"Our mosque confirmed that it says 'Allah' in Arabic," Bites Amantayeva, a farmer from the village of Stepnoi in eastern Kazakhstan, told state news agency Kazinform.

"We were going to make an omelet, but decided against it. We’re not too sure what is inside the egg, but just for safety’s sake, we'll keep this egg. Our Imam said he doesn't think it'll go bad."

"The most suprising thing about all of this is that the chicken is Hindu, not Muslim," says Bites wife, Sukzs Amantayeva.

The news agency said the egg was laid just after a powerful hail storm hit the village and that perhaps the chicken had been traumatized.

“Even if the hail storm did not traumatize the chicken, I am pretty sure the chicken was traumatized by laying the Allah egg. Not only was the egg inscribed with the Arabic word for “Allah”, the egg was also cube-shaped with very sharp corners,” said Bites Amantayeva. “You know that had to hurt!”

Chickens in the village of Stepnoi have been known to lay some weird eggs, though this is the first one with a religious motif on it. “Most of the other eggs with inscriptions on them frankly didn’t make much sense,” says Bites Amantayeva. “There was one that said ‘dingo dirigible’ and another that had a pretty clear image of Danny De Vito on it. We didn’t quite know what to make of those.”

The same chicken that laid the “Allah” egg reportedly laid an egg in April of last year that had the Hard Rock Café logo and the words “Save the Pranet” inscribed on it. No one could account for the misspelling but several villagers pointed out that the egg in question had been laid within a week after the village had been visited by a team of Japanese humanitarian aid workers.

Villagers remember with fondness a chicken that lived in their village in the late 1970s who consistently laid eggs that had sweepstakes give-away messages written on them. “Not every egg was a winner,” says Mr. Amantayeva’s wife, Sukzs. “Sometimes the eggs would say ‘free coke with purchase of a Big Mac’ or ‘supersize your order of fries for free’ and the local McDonald’s would always honor the egg if you brought it in. Sometimes though, the egg would just say ‘sorry – try again later.’ We really miss that chicken.”

"That's how my wife and I met," recalls Bites Amantayeva. "She and I had both gone with friends to see the chicken that laid the sweepstakes give-away eggs. I saw Sukzs standing with her friends and I was immediately smitten."

"Yes, and a few days later he invited me to go for a walk with him in the mountains,' recalls Sukzs. "When we got well away from the village he showed me his amantayeva and I immediately fell in love with him too."

Kazakhstan is a large, thinly populated Central Asian state where Sunni Islam is a dominant religion. Literacy among Kazakhs is 29%, though among Kazakh chickens the literacy rate is a surprising 67%.