Quick Scoop

If you mean the classic question, the egg came first in evolutionary terms, because egg-laying animals existed long before chickens.

What that means

  • Biologically: eggs came first, since reptiles and fish were laying eggs millions of years before chickens evolved.
  • If you mean “the first chicken egg”: that would have come before the first chicken, because a near-chicken bird laid the egg containing the first true chicken.

Short answer

So the answer is the egg.