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Mysterious Lion-Marked Eggs Appear in Suburban Garden

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barfing_pumpkin

Gone But Not Forgotten
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Over the past couble of months, my parents' neighbours have been finding eggs in their back garden. Chickens can be ruled out, because the eggs are lion marked, and my theories concerning how they must have got there have been stumped for the following reasons:

If the eggs were deposited by urban wildlife - such as a fox exhibiting larder behaviour - then why no shells? Presuming that a fox would eventually return to the larder to eat the goods, one would expect at least a few broken or crunched-up shells here and there. But apparently, no broken eggs have been found. All have been intact, and all were lion marked. Besides, even if it was the work of a fox using the garden as a cache, then where is it getting the eggs from? There's no farm nearby, nor - AFAIA - no food storage warehouse or supermarket. And who in the locality would continually leave, say, a basket of eggs in a place where it continually gets raided by wildlife?

Badgers, maybe? But I'm pretty sure they would just eat the eggs, wouldn't they?

So maybe it's local kids chucking eggs about - but again, the problem arises that no broken, splattered eggs have been found.

The only remotely plausible explanation I can find is that it is a prank - or more to the point, a bit of mischief carried by one/some/all of the grandkids that visit them at the weekend (yes, the neighbours are elderly, but of sound mind - so alzheimer's can be ruled out as an explanation also). And yet ... it just doesn't quite hold water, based on the fact that the kids would no doubt be nicking the eggs from their parents or grandparents, and would probably have been found out by now. As I said, this has been going on for a good couple of months - more than enough time for the parents or grandparents to notice a missing egg or two.

So ... any ideas, anyone? It's stumped me, and it would be nice to crack it.

(I know ... it was inevitable, wasn't it.)
 
I reckon they should carefully record the exact time and place each egg was found, and make graphs and diagrams with the data, as well as keeping a thorough daily journal of all their activities, thoughts and dreams.

It could be the beginning of a thrilling metaphysical adventure - The Egg Code, or something - eggs and lions are of course highly significant occult symbols, somebody or something might be trying to tell them something .....

;)
 
Forgive my ignorance, but what is "lion marked?"
 
The Lion Mark was a red stamp introduced in 1957 along with marks to show the egg's grade and packing station code numbers. Sometime later the mark fell out of use (maybe 1973 when the EEC took over responsiblility for grades and packaging etc?)

The Lion Mark was reintroduced in 1998 to show the eggs were produced to the highest standards and that the chickens had been vaccinated against Salmonella.
 
...or Tales of the Uneggspected!
 
I'm having trouble reading some of the replies. The letters are all scrambled! Have you considered the eggs may have been poached?
 
Ignoring all the terrible puns for a moment, have they cracked any of the eggs open to find out if they are raw or cooked? Not sure precisely what it would prove, but might help narrow down where they are coming from.
 
In what sort of area do they live? Countryside? City?

Town?

Village?

Omlet?

sorry
 
It's a brain-coddler. If the lions were dragons, it could be a case of Foo Yung Fighters! :oops:
 
Perhaps as the original poster says it is kids throwing them, but to test the old factoid you can throw eggs over a house and they won't break if they land on grass. It doesn't say whether the eggs were found on the grass or the patio/decking, or whatever.

(The only time I tried this I discovered that eggs do break if you misjudge your throw and hit the front of the house!)
 
myf13 said:
Ignoring all the terrible puns for a moment, have they cracked any of the eggs open to find out if they are raw or cooked? Not sure precisely what it would prove, but might help narrow down where they are coming from.
Click to expand...

That's the whole point of the Lion stamp etc, you can tell EGG-ACTLY (I am so sorry...) where the egg came from, when it was laid etc.
 
Ignoring all the terrible puns for a moment, have they cracked any of the eggs open to find out if they are raw or cooked? Not sure precisely what it would prove, but might help narrow down where they are coming from.
Click to expand...

Hmmm ... haven't thought of that. But I guess the eggs themselves must be raw, as the neighbours haven't made any comment other than that they keep turning up in the garden, and all have been intact. Still, will check, just to be sure.



In what sort of area do they live? Countryside? City?

Town?

Village?

Omlet?
Click to expand...

Town. Suburban. No real countryside for miles. (just the sort area, in fact, that urban foxes are supposed to thrive in...)


Perhaps as the original poster says it is kids throwing them, but to test the old factoid you can throw eggs over a house and they won't break if they land on grass. It doesn't say whether the eggs were found on the grass or the patio/decking, or whatever.
Click to expand...

There actually isn't that much grass in the garden - lots of patio and paving, with a number of raised flower beds and allotment-style vegetable plots (they have a fairly big garden). I've not been told whether the eggs have generally been found on the patio/paved bits or the soil, so I'll have to get back on that one.

Personally, I'm beginning to suspect poultry-geist activity...
(obligatory egg-related pun no. 9973 of the series)
 
Bit of an update: I've been chatting to my mum, who has been chatting to the neighbours, and I can now confirm a few things:

All the eggs have been raw.

One egg was broken, the rest have been intact. Considering the amount of paving and hard surfaces in the garden, it pretty much rules out the idea that the eggs have been thrown.

Interesting new factoid, too: the bloke who owns the garden which backs onto theirs (no intervening alleyway, btw) has also been finding eggs. This pretty much puts the kibosh on it being a prank by the grandkids, and to my mind it strongly indicates animal behaviour. The bloke himself suspects badger activity, though my parents' neighbours have inspected all the fencing and claim that they can't see any evidence of a badger run (such as dug out ground beneath the fencing.) Still, it doesn't rule out badgers completely, nor foxes. But if it is down to animals, then where are they getting all these eggs from? One possibility - there is a grocer's shop nearby, and it's conceivable that an animal could be raiding a storage area. The neighbours have mooted the idea of visiting the shop to see if there has been any unusual depletion in their egg stocks recently, but until then, I can only keep guessing.
 
barfing_pumpkin said:
Bit of an update: I've been chatting to my mum, who has been chatting to the neighbours, and I can now confirm a few things:

All the eggs have been raw.

One egg was broken, the rest have been intact. Considering the amount of paving and hard surfaces in the garden, it pretty much rules out the idea that the eggs have been thrown.

Interesting new factoid, too: the bloke who owns the garden which backs onto theirs (no intervening alleyway, btw) has also been finding eggs. This pretty much puts the kibosh on it being a prank by the grandkids, and to my mind it strongly indicates animal behaviour. The bloke himself suspects badger activity, though my parents' neighbours have inspected all the fencing and claim that they can't see any evidence of a badger run (such as dug out ground beneath the fencing.) Still, it doesn't rule out badgers completely, nor foxes. But if it is down to animals, then where are they getting all these eggs from? One possibility - there is a grocer's shop nearby, and it's conceivable that an animal could be raiding a storage area. The neighbours have mooted the idea of visiting the shop to see if there has been any unusual depletion in their egg stocks recently, but until then, I can only keep guessing.
Click to expand...

I would have thought that any self respecting animal would have been eating any food they liberated. My garden is full of tall shrubs and we often get foil containers where foxes / badgers steal rubbish / take outs and eat the contents and leave the trays in the bushes where they eat them under cover.

Raw unbroken eggs just left in the open? odd! If it keeps on happening could you borrow a motion triggered camera?
 
This seems to be going nowhere. Possibly a case of un oeuf is un oeuf. I'm sorry I cant help myself. :lol:
 
These animals which are choosing only lion marked eggs....they must be very eggs-acting.
 
I would have thought that any self respecting animal would have been eating any food they liberated. My garden is full of tall shrubs and we often get foil containers where foxes / badgers steal rubbish / take outs and eat the contents and leave the trays in the bushes where they eat them under cover.
Click to expand...

That's what I'd have thought too - but it is known that foxes do display cache behaviour, particularly with regard to the 'chicken-coop slaughter' that dismays so many farmers/smallholders or whatever, and which leads a lot of people to anthropomorphise the fox as a nasty, vicious animal that kills for fun. This, of course, is not the case - the fox kills all the chickens in the coop so that it has a ready supply of food for later, either for itself or cubs. As to whether or not a fox could extend the concept to eggs is another matter, though - it does seem more likely that it would just eat the eggs there and then, especially if it is getting them all from the same place (as it would already have a 'larder' on hand anyway).

Still - and at the risk anthropomorphising the animal myself - all animals are known to have their little quirks, and I guess a relatively intelligent creature like the fox would be no exception. So maybe it's operating a kind of 'screwed-up' form of cache behaviour - supposing, of course, that the culprit really is a fox.

If not a fox, then maybe a mental badger. Dunno if badgers are 'sophisticated' enough to operate such a system - be it screwed up or not - but the idea of a mental badger makes me laugh, so I'm prepared to consider it.
 
eegs

:twisted: STINK BOMBS, that,s what it is , the kids leave them there for 2, 3 weeks until they start to hum and then pick them up later.... ;)
 
Have your grandparents eaten any of the eggs?

Putingmy Agatha Christie hat on I'm wondering if someone dislikes them enough to try poisoning then this way - well there's nowt as queer as folks.
 
Stink bombs, possibly - but they've been found in a neighbour's garden too, as explained in a previous post, and it seems unlikely that the culprits would be operating in two gardens owned by people who are unrelated.

BTW, the people I'm referring to are my parents' neighbours, who are indeed grandparents, but not mine. Still, I'll have to ask if they've eaten them.

No new info to report, unfortunately; been a bit too busy.
 
This is an eggsellent fortean story!
 
This has got nothing to do with eggs, but I suspect it has alot to do with animal behaviour:-

Before I moved to where I am now, I used to put leftover cat food out each night, for any urban foxes or whatever (there were definitely foxes around.)

I had a series of cat-food dishes simply disappear.
They weren't nice enough to be stolen by humans, and there was no evidence of teenage vandalism.I've always assumed that some enterprising animal came back several consecutive nights, and possibly still has a burrow full of dishes waiting to be washed up!
 
Well think about it for a moment, eggs in the back garden not broken, wild animals will eat the eggs as soon as possible, so it won,t be cats or dog,s, they will just play with them and break them.So it,s must be human .It just must be. :)
 
I was gardening once (not my own garden- a big edge of the city garden) whe I found a half buried egg, I thought it was a pebble and prodded it with my trowel which broke it. I assumed it was stashed there by a squirrel. Rats will move eggs around too, I've given pet rats whole eggs before and they get all excited and walk backwards rolling them along under their bellies but aren't really sure about what to do with them unless you break the shells for them.
 
If rats and the like can move eggs without breaking them, then maybe this mystery has an animal solution after all.
 
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