Don't Count Your Chickens Before They Hatch . . .

. . . they might mutate:

The team comprising a geneticist, a philosopher and a chicken farmer says the egg came first.

The first chicken developed differently to its avian predecessors.

Such mutations could only have occurred at the start of the chicken's life when it was in the egg. Therefore, the egg existed before the first chicken had hatched.

Professor John Brookfield of the University of Nottingham, who is an expert in evolutionary genetics, said the first chicken would have hatched from another species of bird.

Well, at least I'll finally be able to sleep at night.