A HEN has mystified her owner after laying an unusual banded two-tone egg, in a find that is possibly rarer than hen’s teeth.

Norman Durham, from Hutton Rudby, North Yorkshire, had been on his usual rounds checking on his poultry and collecting eggs when he came across his unusual find.

The egg produced by the Welsummer hen has a two tone colour in a curiously symmetrical pattern.

Friday's discovery has left Norman and his neighbours scrambled. He has kept hens for 50 years and says he has never discovered an egg coloured in this way.

“I was feeding them on my morning rounds and then found it in the nest box,” he said.

“It’s just a freak occurrence really. I’ve never, ever seen one like it before, nothing even near to it.”

It is not known why the egg appeared the way it did but it has scrambled

Unusual eggs can be a sign of stress or illness, or are sometimes just a chance occurrence.

Other un-eggspected anomalies in eggs:

Eggs without shells. They can sometimes be laid without a shell, with just a membrane intact, which can happen when young hens begin laying, when their diet lacks calcium, or during hot weather when hens use more energy keeping cool.

Eggs within eggs. Sometimes eggs are laid with double shells, when one fully formed egg is contained within another. It happens when the hen is in the process of forming an egg in her oviduct and another egg cell that becomes the yolk of the egg is released too soon.

Wrinkled eggs. Shells can acquire wrinkles if hens are stressed or disturbed during the calcification process, or if they have an infection.

Double yolks. Often laid by younger hens whose laying cycle hasn’t yet settled down.