A PENSIONER in Bromsgrove thinks his hen may have broken a town record, by laying an egg the size of a bottle cap.

Derek Ireson, 77, of Littleton Avenue, had a shock when he opened his garden chicken pen on Monday, to find the 3cm-long egg lying next to a normal-sized one.

He said: "It was a bit of a shock. It was just so small but it's fully formed - it's got the shell and everything. It just looks like a normal brown egg from the outside but I don't know what it looks like inside.

"I showed it to a couple and they said 'good God', they'd never seen anything like it."

Derek, who lives in Charford with his dog and two hens, says he now plans to keep the egg as a souvenir.

"I'm not going to eat it, it'll be kept in the fridge to keep it safe," said Derek, who has been keeping hens for 10 years. "When I had six hens I used to get five or six eggs a day and give them away to friends and nieces, but I think I'll just keep this one for myself."