British scientists and a farmer say they have solved the question of what came first, the chicken or the egg, saying the egg definitely was the original.

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Evolutionary genetics Professor John Brookfield of the University of Nottingham told The Independent the same DNA code of the chicken and the egg it came from proves the egg was first.

He said a living organism, in this case a chicken, keeps the same DNA structure as it did when an embryo in the egg, The Independent reports.

"Therefore, the first living thing that we could say unequivocally was a member of the species would be this first egg," said Brookfield.

King's College London Professor David Papineau and Charles Bourns, chairman of the Great British Chicken trade board, agreed.

They said the egg could be a mutant change from any other animal that then produced the chicken but not the other way around.