There is a mod for exactly this called "Don't Eat the Owlbear Egg." I immediately downloaded that one lol.
I mean this just seems like something that must have been scrambled up along the way. Perhaps if eating the Owlbear Egg did something more significant? I don't know, perhaps with diet and exercise, a balanced breakfast featuring the Owlbear Egg might give the party some lasting boon. There could be extra dialogue options in some sort of "are you sure you want to eat the Owlbear Egg?" sequence.
Perhaps there is some disagreement there among the camp companions. A scene similar to the first use of the tadpole. For example Astarion might object, since presumably he's not eating anything on the menu. Not that the game really ever accounts for that, he seems to benefit from random potato pies or Tiefling gruel same as everyone else hehe. Perhaps all this food is just for Tav/Durge, and we're only managing our own appetites? In any case, there could still be a moment like that to reinforce some character stuff.
Maybe Jaheira balks cause she's a Druid, and Minsc has misgivings cause he's a Ranger. Probably nobody wants to see any of the companion characters being all terribly enthusiastic about eating the owlbear egg. Maybe Minthara is into it, that sorta fits. It would be more interesting though, if the Goblins were like all craven and we could trade the Owlbear Egg that way. Maybe Owlbear Eggs are poisonous to Gortash somehow, exactly like Return to Oz? Or maybe there are other options besides just pawning it off to Ester is what I'm driving at. I had my suspicions there anyway. I thought perhaps if we held onto the Owlbear Egg that eventually it might hatch or lead to a follow up. Initially I thought the Owl Bear cub might be some kind of summon similar to Scratch.
The appearance of the Owlbear cub at camp is a little bit random, and potentially easy to miss. There are a few ways to show up show up at the Goblin camp and only see the regular chicken chase. Or to mess up the sequence, and have the Owlbear still chillin' at the Goblin party, even after the camp celebration. Or worse, where Andric kills the Owlbear cub, or something like that happens. Seeing the Owlbear Cub get got is always dispiriting, but maybe if the egg could hatch a second owlbear it wouldn't be such a bummer lol.
I legit thought the Egg would have it's own thing going on, since it's a pretty big moment in the early game, but it almost feels like they were going to do something like that but then just never got around to it. Like an Unfinished Business sort of thing.
I think we can feed to the Dinosaur at the Circus by accident as well, which would probably be frustrating if something interesting were to happen with it in Act III. Just seems like there could have been more moments where the Owlbear Egg came up. It's really just that one exchange, anything else we can do with it is a bit of a waste. Like there's not even an achievement for eating the Owlbear Egg, which would be something. A special Evil ending where we are haunted by this choice? I don't know, that I have the Mod downloaded, I barely remember it's there. Like all the potions I forget to drink, or scrolls I forget to write, just sorta sits there collecting dust till we get to the Monastery. And even then I usually just end up knocking Ester out the second Lae'zel suggests it. She's like the easiest Merchant to Hold, and never seems to notice when we show up the next morning wearing her clothes, like brilliant here we go again.
I mean did no one seriously consider how cool it would be to have Owlbears with different colored feathers. Maybe a great horned owlbear, or a spotted Owlbear, or Black Owlbear, or a tiny Elf Owlbear that's like more mini? Similar to the smaller wolves mod, which I also enjoyed. More options would have been cool
