How to raise Backyard Chickens: [CHICKENS-101] Re: How long is too long?

The original question was how long can an egg set in the nest before it is no longer considered any good to eat? If your hens are nonsetters and the weather is nice and cool the answer would be a week or more. If the weather is hot and the hens just go straight to the nests, lay, and leave then again the eggs should be good for at least 4 days to a week. As long as the hens are careful and don't rattle the eggs around in the nest until they are broken they will stay good for a long time.

People seem to forget that the majority of setting hens begin to lay their hidden nests at least 20 days before they decide to start setting. If you were to crack and inspect every egg in that nest of 20 plus day old eggs you would be surprised to find that none of them have gone bad and are still good to eat. Nature needs the same quality of egg to create a chick as you would want for your breakfast. Any criteria that would make an egg fit to enter or win in an egg competition is exactly what nature desires to make the perfect baby chick.

If you have roosters then you really never have to worry about an egg going bad and not knowing it. Fertile eggs will rot when the seal has been compromised by bacteria. If it looks cloudy when cracked in a clear cup then by all means toss it without a thought.

Personally I never crack an egg directly into anything I am making. First it gets cracked into a clear cup to be inspected and to keep any stray egg shell from making it's way into whatever I am cooking. I do this with city eggs as well as the ones I raise myself. Sometimes there are "things" inside of eggs that would make us throw out an entire batch of cookie batter rather than try to salvage it. It only takes a second to crack and inspect an egg and could save you a world of headaches if you don't.

Hens that do not have a rooster in the yard with them pose a greater health threat in a back yard situation. Their eggs can harbor salmonella
and there is no way of visually knowing this fact. However I wouldn't get upset if you gather your eggs on a regular schedule and keep clean straw in the nests then you have little to worry about. An unfertilized egg will dry up in the shell but it will never rot and this is what makes keeping these types of eggs for over 2 months in your refrigerator a bit risky. That is why the stores put an estimated expiration date on the factory eggs to let you know when to toss them. A fertilized egg cancels itself out when it becomes unfit to eat.

I have read it at least 500 times on how to separate and freeze excess eggs in ice cube trays. Personally I wouldn't do it unless I lived so far back in the boonies that I had to take a pack mule train 9 miles to the nearest road just to buy feed and get my needed groceries once a month. Most people aren't this inconvenienced these days unless they really work at it.

Eggs are mostly water filled cells that when frozen burst and become runny when they are defrosted. After a week they can, just like ice cubes do, get a real bad refrigerator odor. I would not recommend keeping a frozen egg around more than a couple of weeks before freezing the second batch, putting them in freezer bags, and frying up the first batch for the cats and dogs.

Eggs that are gathered when frozen and even cracked can be salvaged
if you get right on it. Some people say they are ruined if they are cracked but if they aren't gathered from a dirty nest or have something nasty on them then why would they be bad? Just wash them a little bit under cool running water to remove any dust specks and put them directly into the refrigerator in an egg carton.

They will begin to thaw in the refrigerator since it is warmer than their internal temperature. They will have the same sad quality as any other frozen egg so it is best to use them the next day ASAP. These eggs are probably best served as a scrambled egg along with a few others of better quality. Usually after a frozen egg sets in the refrigerator over night it goes back to it's original unfrozen state and the shell often reseals itself; sometimes to the point that you really have to look very closely to figure out which one was cracked.
Just a note here, all eggs that have been frozen are usually cloudy so do not take this as an indicator of being a bad egg. The cell membranes have ruptured and the egg has changed color just the same as a bruise
does on skin because the cells have been ruptured.

Someone mentioned stained eggs and these are just as good internally as one that is not stained. You wouldn't throw a child away because they had a dirty face and the same applies to eggs. They may not look the greatest but they are still salvageable.

When I have a few eggs that are dirty I soak them for a while in a sink of luke warm water with a couple of squirts of Dawn dish washing soap to make a good head of suds. Then I take each one and carefully scrub them with a Scotts scouring pad, rinse them under clean luke warm water and this usually gets rid of the stain. There are a lot of things other than chicken droppings that can and do stain an egg shell. Certain types of straw when damp can stain an egg as well as a nest made from oak that has drawn moisture. There are several brands of feed that when they get wet or stick to the wet feet of a hen before she goes to her nest, will stain eggs so badly that it is almost next to impossible to get the stain out. Dean
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"Rebecca" <luckydog23@...> wrote:

the gal up the road from me suggested that I take a plastic ice tray and divide the eggs, white in one side, yoke in the other, then freeze them. that way when baking or cooking and the recipe calls for whites or yokes, I have just the thing all ready to use. (nice tip!)