freezing eggs???

[Sita10]

Hiya.
My girls lay eggs intermittently all winter long. We are in northern British Columbia where we get about 8 or so hours of daylight in the winter. The snow starts in late October and ends late March. Our temps. go as low as -35 C (which is about -20 F) for long stretches, but our average temps. are around -15 C (0 f ). Often the coop temps. are only a few degrees warmer than the air temp. We have a single red heat lamp in the coop that some of them will sit under every now and then, but really they acclimatize very well to the cold. In about 8 years of keeping chickens I have never had any of them get frost bite. They are remarkably hardy. The breeds I've had are a variety of banties, Americanas, Rhode Island Reds, Orpingtos and Bard Rock. The girls certainly don't love the snow but they will walk around if there is only a few centimeters of it (we currently have about 2 feet on the ground). I shovel for them around the run and they take to the pathways especially if there are some treats for them.
Often I don't collect the eggs until I get home from work, and usually they are frozen solid. I just pop them into a carton in the fridge. They eventually thaw out and are just fine. No problem with the shells cracking, so I would think putting them in the freezer is just fine.
These birds are fine in the summer too where we can have hot temps. of +30 C (85f). In spite of this crazy fluxuation, they remain healthy and happy. This batch of 9 ladies are currently three years old and still giving about 5 eggs per day. Chickens are truly amazing.

 

[bazwould]

love the thought of this and gonna try it. Your mum has a good idea.

 

[RoyalPayne]

Just read this post about boiling fresh eggs....never, never boil anything less than 2 weeks old. Steam them. I boil water, place a metal sifter in the pot, cover with the pots' lid, and steam for...well, depends on the number of eggs. For 6, I steam for 10-12 minutes. For 12, I'd steam for 20. If not sure, take out one, plunge in cold water, peel and judge yolk that way. This method comes from an old farmer in Maine, and it has never failed me. The lid does not have to be tight, and the yolks have not had that green 'overdone' ring since I started this 5 or 6 years ago.

 

[OrpingtonManor]

So, did anyone try the long-term freezing of whole eggs in ziploc baggies? I had about 10 dozen eggs in my fridge, and needed to do something with them. I decided to try the whole eggs in baggies system. I don't plan to eat them until the summer molt, so I will report back about quality.

 

[Sydney Acres]

So, did anyone try the long-term freezing of whole eggs in ziploc baggies? I had about 10 dozen eggs in my fridge, and needed to do something with them. I decided to try the whole eggs in baggies system. I don't plan to eat them until the summer molt, so I will report back about quality.

I have been doing that for years now, and it works great. I originally found a recipe in an old farming book. I'm majorly behind this year, as I have about 30 dozen chicken eggs and 15 dozen turkey eggs waiting to go into the freezer right now. Just bought a new box of one quart, Ziplock brand freezer bags, which I think work the best..

If storing egg whites alone, they don't need a stabilizer. If storing yolks alone, or whole eggs, they need a stabilizer or they become hard and pasty when thawing. To stabilize, I use 1 teaspoon honey per cup of yolks (about 12 yolks/cup) or per cup of whole eggs (about 5 average chicken eggs per cup). The yolks must be broken and the honey stirred in well with a fork. They don't have to be thoroughly whipped, as that adds too much air, which increases freezer damage to food. You can also strain the whole eggs through a strainer with large holes and then gently stir, which adds no air at all. I haven't tried this last method, as I've been happy with my current method of stirring with a fork, which adds a little air but not too much. It is easiest if the eggs are room temperature, as honey hardens when it's mixed into cold things, and becomes harder to mix. I have read that you can also use the same volume of either sugar or salt instead of honey and get the same results, but I have not tried that as I have my own bee hives. I would not recommend multiplying out the recipe and mixing large batches, especially if using honey, as honey does not mix thoroughly, and you might end up with some really sweet portions, and some really gummy portions.

After I mix up a cup, I put it in a one quart ziplock freezer bag. remove all the air from the bag, and lay the bag flat on a cookie sheet. After the cookie sheet is covered, I put it in the freezer. Do not stack multiple layers. The purpose of the single, flat, thin bags on the cookie sheet is that the eggs will freeze very fast. That minimizes freezer damage, so the eggs taste better. They also freeze in a very flat, equal shape, which makes storage easier. After the bags are frozen solid, I remove them and stand them upright in a box that is the perfect height and width, kind of like 4X6" cards in an old fashioned recipe box. That stores the eggs very efficiently, taking up a minimum of space in the freezer, and allows you to easily "file" them with the oldest in front and the newest in back for appropriate rotation of food. Different sources say that eggs can be stored this way for either 6 months or 1 year, but it may be longer. I use them for omelets and cooking, where large numbers of eggs are required. I put the frozen bag in a bowl of cool water for 20 minutes to thaw, then cut the corner off the plastic bag and squeeze the contents into a bowl. Easy, and no mess.

You can also freeze the whole, stabilized, well mixed eggs in an ice cube tray. Spray the tray with Pam first to make the cubes slide out easily. After they're frozen solid, put the cubes in a plastic bag and remove as much air as possible. Each average sized cube equals approximately one egg, so that can be very handy for cooking when you don't need a large number of eggs.

One important detail -- be sure to label the bag with what type of stabilizer you use, as the extra honey, salt, or sugar could significant affect the flavor of your food. I haven't tried the salt option yet, but the honey option works great for omelets -- not at all overly sweet or weird tasting.

 

[Sydney Acres]

Just read this post about boiling fresh eggs....never, never boil anything less than 2 weeks old. Steam them. I boil water, place a metal sifter in the pot, cover with the pots' lid, and steam for...well, depends on the number of eggs. For 6, I steam for 10-12 minutes. For 12, I'd steam for 20. If not sure, take out one, plunge in cold water, peel and judge yolk that way. This method comes from an old farmer in Maine, and it has never failed me. The lid does not have to be tight, and the yolks have not had that green 'overdone' ring since I started this 5 or 6 years ago.

I first read about doing this 2 years ago, and always steam my eggs now. I steam for 20 minutes, but have never adjusted the time for the number of eggs. I'll have to try that.

Steaming makes peeling fresh eggs so much easier, and I find the white to be less rubbery.and the yolk more flavorful. It's worth the extra effort.

 

[briarkpatchfarm]

This is a definite 'yes' in so many ways. You can whip them up like for scrambled eggs and freeze them like that or you can separate them and freeze the white and yolks separately. This is much more prevalent than we consumers know about as we bought and used 10 gallon pails of frozen whites at the bakery in town when I worked there. You can also freeze them cooked as in scrambled eggs and make your own breakfast sandwich fare.

 

[Angie16hearts]

This freezing egg talks reminded of a funny story a friend of mine told me years ago. She mistakenly put the eggs in the freezer, instead of the fridge. But she admitted she knew nothing about food and cooking and storing food etc. One day she had a new BF come round to visit and she decided to cook him some eggs. And found the eggs frozen solid. That didn't deter her. She somehow managed to get the shells off and dropped them in the frying pan and spooned hot oil over them, trying to thaw them and cook them. That didn't work very well... For some reason she decided to feed them to the BF like that, cooked slightly round the outside and still quite frozen inside. And sat and watched the poor guy trying to eat them and probably wondering why the eggs kept scooting off the plate when he tried to cut them!

Believe it or not she ended up marrying this guy, but I guess it's safe to say he didn't marry her for her cooking skills! 

That is a one funny story! He must have really liked her!

 

[chicken4prez]

Lol @sumi ! love your story

 

[bluema]

I haven't read through the whole thread (I only sorta skimmed), so I don't know if someone has brought it up... but for those of us with smaller flocks... You can kind of predict when the next egg is due if you've got the time. They come in fairly regular intervals based on the individual hen's laying schedule. Because I'm a gigantic nerd, and stat hound, I've been making it a little bit of a side hobby to track my hen's schedules for my own education. Mostly to keep track of how many, from who, and to detail each hen's cycle, and how the length of day really impacts laying.

So, these are the charts I've made (if you are interested in seeing how I am tracking). I've turned on the dots on one of the hens in the laying time chart so you can see her schedule more clearly.



So the only data I am inputing is the weight of the eggs, the time the eggs are laid, the a count on the day the eggs each hen lay, and sunrise/sunset/day length values (which I get from an online calculator/calendar). The rest is automatically filled and drawn. I set up the charts and the fields calculating averages to auto-populate from the values I am entering in.


Since I am fortunate enough to be home during the day, I mark the row on days the morning lows are going to be in the single digits... I have an automatic chicken door so I can sleep in a little, but if it is obvious from the schedule that a hen is going to lay an egg right after sun up, I make a point to be up to collect it.


I haven't had any trouble with eggs freezing, but it's been a rather mild winter here this year, and in a fascinating twist... I have caught two of my girls (the two lowest on the pecking order) sitting in the nests on eggs on days they aren't due to lay or long after they've laid for the day as if it's their job to keep the flock's eggs from freezing.

lol, I do the same creating a spreadsheet chart of my chickens laying. However, their laying pattern become erratic during cold winter days.
I resorted to installing bird cams so that I could figure out exactly who's laying which egg exactly when, and whether there are eggs to be gathered.