Chicken or Egg

Before a shell was ever laid,
A living thing had to be made.
No egg appears from empty air,
A hen must first be standing there.

You cannot warm what isn’t born,
None to make nest at early morn.
Without a bird to guard the nest,
An egg would never come to rest.

Feathers, blood, and beating chest
Life must exist to make the rest.
The chicken walks, then leaves behind
The oval proof of its own kind.

But every hen, with claw and beak
Was once inside a shell, once was weak
Before she scratched or had a leg,
She formed within a simple egg.

Long before the farm and pen,
Creatures laid their eggs back then.
Not quite chickens, yet close to be
One egg away from what we see.

A tiny change in genes inside,
A shift no farmer could decide.
The first true chicken, round and small
Was hatched from something, first of all.

So here we stand with both sides said,
With feathers raised and shells well-spread.
Now answer clear, don’t think and beg
Which came first? The chicken or the egg?