So enthralled was Fedorovna with the piece--an enameled egg with a golden yoke, golden hen, miniature diamond crown and ruby egg inside--that the czar commissioned a new egg every Easter.

FORBES: Faberge Egg Goes Back To Its Nest

This is the idea that a hen is merely an egg's way of making another egg.

ECONOMIST: Ageing

The danger, were the U.S. to adopt these changes, is that it could literally kill the hen that lays the golden egg of our competitiveness.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Center For Security Policy

Ideally, when a chick becomes a candidate to become an egg-laying hen, it is put in a clean environment with clean water and feed, he said.

CNN: STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Just as a hen is about to lay an egg, she applies a liquid coating around it that naturally protects against contamination.

FORBES: Natural Protection

Salmonella can make its way inside the egg in the reproductive tract of a hen before the shell is formed.

FORBES: To Fridge of Not to Fridge?

Alternatively, bacteria in the hen's ovary or oviduct can get to the egg before the shell forms around it, FSIS said.

CNN: STORY HIGHLIGHTS

"A hen in Guantanamo has laid a six-ounce 'super egg, ' challenging the Guinness world record, " the EFE News Service reported in July 2008.

WSJ: Big Chocolate Eggs May Be Big, but Big Hen's Eggs Not So Much