Can I eat these?

[kryptoniteqhs]

Ok so my hen was laying on about 20 eggs and (her very first) and they were never fertalized, but I had been planning on getting her a rooster and I didnt want to take the eggs away while she was on them and scare her out of her "broodiness" Anywho, she stopped laying on them, I think theyre too old to eat tho. Although, its been in the 20s and 30s for a while. Shes been off of them a few days now and I just went to go and get them to throw them away, but they looked totally fine. So now I am wondering if we should keep them to eat? Maybe I'll randomly crack a couple open and see what they look like inside? Feed them back to the chickens? Dog? lol.....such a waste

 

[Poohbear]

Boil them first. No egg shells for the dogs but eggshell is fine for chickens. Re-supplies the calcium to make eggs (along with crushed shell or grit.)

 

[debilorrah]

How old are they?

 

[kryptoniteqhs]

not completely lol....i figure if she had 20 of them, at the most she would have laid is 1 a day, so i guess thatd make the oldest a min of 20days old....eww maybe not so good?? but then again is freezing outside....i put them in my fridge till i figure out what im gonna do lol....i tell ya....me and little decisions

 

[Chicken Woman]

I wouldn't eat them

 

[gritsar]

I tend to be overly cautious with my food. My SO almost died from e.coli last year and even though his illness was not caused by food I never want to go through that again.
If they are more than a day or two old I'd say scramble them up and feed them back to the hens.
I feel for ya though. I threw 24 beautiful eggs away today. We are worming our chickens and can't eat them.

 

[kryptoniteqhs]

ya....there just so pretty though lol....ill feed some back to them tomorrow

 

[silkiechicken]

If she was sitting on them actively for 20 days, I'd not eat them and fertilize some plants with them.

If they were just sitting in the nest and she just laid a new egg on the nest for 20 days, I'd go ahead and eat any of the eggs that did not float when placed in a cup of water.

 

[dancingbear]

Quote:
Pardon the length of this post, but it sounds like you may be very new at this, and maybe have some confusion about how all this works.

When a hen is broody, and stays on the eggs, (and they stay on the eggs constantly, just getting off the nest once a day for food and water, and to poop) that's called "setting". If she was setting on the eggs, she was keeping them at about 98-99F. So eggs kept at that temp, more than a day or two at most, I'd toss them.

If she wasn't actually setting, so that the eggs were cool most of the time, you could put them in a bowl of water and see if any float. Throw away any floaters. The rest, crack them in a bowl, one at a time, (when you're ready to use them) to see if they're ok before using them. A bad egg will look weird, and probably smell bad. If your hen free ranges and gets nice grass and other plants to eat, the yolks will be a nice, deep orange, rather than the sickly yellow of supermarket eggs. So if the only visible difference from supermarket eggs is the color of the yolk, that's ok. Any that actually froze will have cracks, longwise. You could boil those, mash them up shell and all, and feed back to her.

It's unusual for a pullet to go broody as soon as she starts laying eggs. Once a hen goes broody, she stops laying eggs for awhile, either until the eggs hatch and the chicks are ready to be on their own, or she gives up on hatching them. Was your hen really broody, or were you just going to the coop while she was on the nest laying her daily egg? If she was really broody, you must have other hens who were adding eggs to the nest every day. Or did you just not collect eggs for 20 days and then she went broody?

If you do get a roo later, and you want to let her hatch a clutch of eggs when she becomes broody again, it's best to save up some eggs and put them under her all at the same time, so they'll hatch all at the same time. Otherwise, you end up with 2 or 3 hatched, and a lot of partially developed dead chicks still in the eggs, when she gets off the nest with the first ones to hatch.

When a hen is broody, taking away the eggs might annoy her, but it won't "scare her out of being broody",
but when a hen is already broody, it's too late to give her a roo. She needs to mate with a roo before she lays the eggs, not after she's stopped laying in order to brood. After mating, a hen will remain fertile for a few weeks.

I hope this helps clear up some confusion. Good luck with your hen. What breed is she, and do you have others?

 

[kryptoniteqhs]

Thanks for the info.....yes i am fairly new...ive had chickens for about 8mos or so, but these are my first that I raised from little pullets. I am sick of trying to locate chickens around here, so I bought an RIR rooster the other day. Ive got 2 RIR hens, 1 RIR rooster, 1 sexlink hen, 2 silver laced cochin bantam hens, and 1 silver laced cochin bantam roo. Anyways, this hen was definitely setting on the eggs, she didn't get off of them for quite a while. She also made her nesting place in a place where I dont think the others would go lay theirs. I had never seen them near there, just her. And they didnt seem to bother her much.
I started noticing roosting in a different place than normal. I didnt think much of it, because I didnt think she was laying yet. Finally, after a week or so of noticing her doing this (im usually down in the barn when its dark, so I didnt know she was on them the whole, time, just thought she was roosting) I lifted her up and she had a ton of eggs under her. I started going down in the day when I would get a chance and she was still up there, perfectly content all by herself. One of the times I lifted her to check her, she must have had an egg between her legs, so when I moved her over she took it with her. I counted the eggs and put her back on them and then she pecked at the egg next to her that I didnt know she took with her and made me put it back up underneath her and then was content. I thought that was so cute......