Can I Eat Eggs if Treating with Tetracycline?

[lshipes14]

My entire flock is on Tetracycline for an URI - a few of my hens have bubly eye.

Am I correct that I should not eat their eggs? I have been waiting for 6 months for my first egg, and I'm afraid I can't eat these now.

If I can't eat them, what can I do with them? I don't want to be wasteful.

Thank you for your help!

 

[sumi]

The withdrawal period for tetracycline is listed as 5 days and I heard you shouldn't give it to laying birds...
There will be some residue from the meds in their eggs during this period, so don't feed it back to them and don't incubate them. I'm not going to suggest you eat them yourself, because, like I said, there will be residue in the eggs. It's up to you, but personally I'd toss them. Sorry this had to happen now after you waited so long for those eggs!

 

[lshipes14]

Thanks - Why not incubate them? I was told on an different site that I couldn't eat them, so I should try to hatch them. I'm a beginner... Thanks is advance for helping me figure this out!

 

[sumi]

I haven't tried it myself, but I know of people who incubated the eggs after giving their chickens medicine/deworming them with disastrous results. They hatched severely handicapped chicks and most of the chicks died very soon after hatching.
If you feed the eggs back to the hens you prolong their exposure to the medicine (and the withdrawal) and if you eat it, you get some of the medicine too, so the best is to discard them, unfortunately.