Washing vs. not washing eggs- How long will they stay fresh?

[chrism]

Quote:
Originally Posted by shortgrass

What can I clarify for you?

I don't know what I said that was redundant. I thought that I was pretty straight forward about my general disdain for gov. ineptness with our food supply.

shortgrass was referring to song of joy's post, not something you said.

Yeah, that. Sorry about the confusion; I was asking song of joy to clarify the laws in her state because I was shocked to see such rediculously strict guidelines..

I guess I could always Google it myself huh?

Oops... my mistake.

The "must sell within 5 days of lay" perfectly highlights the ridiculousness of bureaucrats.
Like you point out, commercial farmers do not have to follow this rule.
I believe that the cards are intentionally stacked against the individual.
Even though I embrace the Constitutionally protected right to lobby the gov., it's been used against the civilian population.
Okay... that's more than plenty of my soap-box talk.

 

[song of joy]

Oops... my mistake.

The "must sell within 5 days of lay" perfectly highlights the ridiculousness of bureaucrats.
Like you point out, commercial farmers do not have to follow this rule.
I believe that the cards are intentionally stacked against the individual.
Even though I embrace the Constitutionally protected right to lobby the gov., it's been used against the civilian population.
Okay... that's more than plenty of my soap-box talk.

Having to sell within 5 days of lay does seem unreasonable, especially when grocery store eggs are a lot older than this. This does seem to work against the local farmer who may taking eggs to a farmers market once/week.
I also wonder if commercial producers have to wash eggs. There's no requirement that small-scale operations do so in PA.

 

[majortaylor]

As someone who lived in Europe for many years, the idea of needing to refrigerate eggs seems silly to me!

 

[shortgrass]

Yes, I think there are different rules for small flocks vs larger-scale commercial sales.  However, I haven't looked into the rules for larger-scale commercial sales.  I agree that what you're buying direct from a local farm is probably much fresher.   Here's the link for small-scale sales in PA:   http://www.portal.state.pa.us/porta...lications/EGGS From SMALL FLOCK producers.pdf

The rules seem pretty reasonable and straight-forward to me.  It's what I'd want to know if I were buying eggs from someone (name, date of eggs) and how I'd want the eggs kept (refrigerated).  It certainly doesn't guarantee against fraud . . . like someone intentionally mislabeling and selling you unrefrigerated eggs that are a month old . . . but as a consumer I think it's helpful.    

Oh boy lol... I could BATHE in all the gray areas in that document!!!

For instance, I LOVE how its worded, " IF you have less than 300 hens, and sell within 5 days, and sell within a 100 mile radius, the following rules apply " etc... (I misquoted it, but I couldn't copy and paste off a PDF for some dumb reason lol)...

And then it goes into RETAIL rules, like it was an added thought... Oh that's gotta be a headache

CERTIFIED organic takes a lot of tedious paperwork and dating packages and eggs, but even THAT isn't quite so... Vague and misleading lol

IF...hmmm lol


Edit* I think those are actually just retail rules for producers... Worded like it anyway...

I just have to laugh... What IF I don't WANT to sell them within 5 days? None of the rules apply?

 

[shortgrass]

As someone who lived in Europe for many years, the idea of needing to refrigerate eggs seems silly to me!

It's because we wash them! Lol if we weren't such germaphobes and had to sterilize everything to death, we wouldn't need to refrigerate them at all

I don't refrigerate them, but I also don't wash the protective bloom off

 

[appps]

As someone who lived in Europe for many years, the idea of needing to refrigerate eggs seems silly to me!

Afraid it's becoming the norm over here in Australia too, though one local woolworths refrigerate all their eggs and another woolworths stores them on a shelf still. I imagine it must be more profitable for them somehow to run those coolers for the eggs but can't quite work out how.

 

[HeritageHome]

My grandma was the chicken guru in the family. Back when chicken keeping was simpler than its become today, and they just ran all over the neighborhood - the children's job being to "herd" them home in the evening.
She used to tell me that unwashed eggs could last as much as 3 months if you kept them out of the sunlight in a dry place. They'd stockpile in the fall and be eating those eggs through the winter.
She scoffed at storebought eggs and just wouldn't eat them if they were more than a couple weeks old.
I can't say I've kept any for a period of months, but I've certainly eaten some that stayed on the counter for 3+ weeks and they were just fine. If I've mixed up my eggs and can't recall their age; I use the float test. A good indicator in my book.

 

[chrism]

Thank you HeritageHome.
Welcome to this great forum. I've learned so much from these great people and I'm sure that you will too.

 

[Mahlzeit]

From the searching that I've done... I realize that this question gets asked a whole lot.
So before my question, just a little background of what I have planned:
I have a flock of about 50 dual breed hens. I'm helping my son get a egg delivery business up and going.
My family will of course use our own eggs but the majority will be sold.
At the moment we do not wash the eggs and only wipe off dirt with a dry cloth. They then get stored in a storage tote and put in our cool crawl space. Even this time of year, I doubt that it gets much below 45° down there.
We wash them in warm water right before cracking the shell.
We plan on giving our customers the choice of receiving washed or unwashed eggs.

So... on to the questions:
How long will UN-washed eggs stay fresh refrigerated?
How long will UN=washed eggs stay fresh UN-refrigerated?

Same questions for WASHED eggs.

I myself have had a little egg business going and recently moved to a bigger property and have enlarged my scale. I have 50 layers myself right now and can't keep up with the demand for eggs. I don't wash mine unless they are really gross which is a rare occurrence. Are you keeping records of how many eggs you get per day and how many pounds of feed you go through a month and things like that? I have a spreadsheet which I plug the numbers into each day and it gives me the number of eggs i get each day, % of hens laying, cost per egg, feed per egg, incoming and expenses. Would be a fun an interesting way for your son to keep track of his business as it grows.

 

[chrism]

I have not done any cost of goods sold tracking yet.
I'm still at the beginning stages of teaching my boy the very basics of the responsibility of caring for a flock/heard of dependent beings.
He's really getting better and I hope to move on to the financial aspect soon.
I don't want to overload his little brain too much though.
I already have to step up my plan to have the "talk" with him because we have just discovered that we have two unplanned for roosters. So far he is trusting me that what he is seeing is not a worry but I can't keep the vagueness of my answers going for more than a few more days longer.

I have yet to figure out yet what hens are actually laying eggs vs. laying on the job.