Farmer's Video of Broken Egg Shocks Internet: 'Still Alive'

A video of a woman in Virginia who opened a cracked egg and found that "it was clearly still alive" has gone viral on Instagram.

Kate Canine, a 34-year-old wife and mother of three children, discovered a "beating" heart inside a cracked egg one morning while checking on one of her chickens at their farm in Lexington, Virginia, she told Newsweek.

Canine captured the moment in a viral video shared on the Instagram account of High Five Farms (@high_five_farms). The clip has received 20.2 million views since it was posted on January 4.

A message across the clip says: "Knowing it wouldn't be able to hatch, I decided to open it to see if it had developed at all...and it was clearly still alive."

The footage shows a close-up of the yoke of two eggs, one of which had what appeared to be a web of blood vessels radiating outward from a small clump beating at its center.

Canine told Newsweek: "As you can see, there are two eggs in the video. The other egg was cracked open as well, this one was not fertilized. The egg that clearly has a heartbeat was on about day 4/5 of development."

Stages of Chicken Egg Development

A chick emerges from an egg after three weeks (21 days) of incubation. Soon after incubation begins, a pointed, thickened layer of cells becomes visible in the tail end of the embryo. This pointed area is known as "the primitive streak," and this is where the head and backbone of the embryo develop, according to a Mississippi State University website.

The site says: "A precursor of the digestive tract forms; blood islands appear and will develop later into the vascular or blood system; and the eye begins. On the second day of incubation, the blood islands begin linking and form a vascular system, while the heart is being formed elsewhere.

"By the 44th hour of incubation, the heart and vascular systems join, and the heart begins beating. Two distinct circulatory systems are established, an embryonic system for the embryo and a vitelline system extending into the egg," the website says.

On the fourth day of incubation, "the head and tail come close together so the embryo forms a 'C' shape.... The heart continues to enlarge even though it has not been enclosed within the body. It is seen beating if the egg is opened carefully.

"By the end of the fourth day of incubation, the embryo has all organs needed to sustain life after hatching, and most of the embryo's parts can be identified," the website explained.

'A Miracle That I Got to See This'

Canine said she had around eight or nine eggs under one of their hens, called Bunny. She went outside to check on her clutch of eggs and saw that another chicken had pecked at this particular egg.

The egg had been cracked open and part of the egg had leaked out, she said. It was also quite cold by this point, so she "knew development had either stopped or would stop soon after."

"Knowing there wasn't anything I could do to save the egg per se...I went ahead and opened it to see what stage of development it was at or see if it had even developed at all. The heart stopped beating shortly after this video was taken, and it was actually quite a miracle that I got to see this," Canine said.

'Heartbreaking'

Users on Instagram were amazed and saddened by the clip. User cute_intergalactic_spider said: "That's so cool."

User lilly_marisa112 wrote: "This little thing is heartbreaking." And user le.blanque said: "Oh nooo, the little heart still beating."

User linser323 said: "The little beating heart." User miss.olive.1516 said: "Poor baby." And user ingrammarseu said: "Naaw how sad."

User that_1_horsegirl wrote: "I would probably cry my eyes out."

Do you have an interesting video to share? Let us know via life@newsweek.com and your story could be featured in Newsweek.