Got The Bird, But No Bees Here

(I work at the African exhibit of a zoo. I have a real ostrich egg that we regularly show to visitors. We only have two female ostriches that occasionally lay an egg. Their keepers take it out, empty the yolk, and give it to our staff for demo purposes.)

Me: “Hi kids, want to see a real ostrich egg?”

Kid: “Ooh, why is there a hole in it?”

Me: “The keepers drilled a hole to get to yolk out, so it doesn’t become rotten. It has a yolk just like a chicken egg you eat for breakfast. We don’t have any boy ostriches so we know there wasn’t a chick inside, only a yolk.”

(The mother of the kid chimes in.)

Mother: “The boys lay the eggs with the chicks inside?”

Me: “No, we only have females, so there is no chick, only yolk. It’s like when chicken lay eggs we eat.”

Mother: “Right, so only the males lay eggs with chicks inside?”

Me: “No, males don’t lay eggs at all. It takes a boy and a girl to make a chick. Like to make a baby, the boy has to fertilize the eggs?”

Mother: “Ooh!”