Dates on Egg Cartons

[Blue Ridge Hillbilly]

I was shocked today to while reading Robert Plamondon's poultry newsletter that the date (best by date) commercial egg farmers put on the egg carton can be as much as 45 days and the eggs can still called fresh. That blew me away. I had no idea that eggs in the grocery store could be that old and still considered "fresh". Robert said that he was going to start dating his eggs 30 days out rather than 45 days. Did you guys know about the 45 days? Heck, I thought I have been buying fresh eggs all these years.

 

[Judy]

The other line on the carton, besides the "best by Aug 20" or whatever, tells the date the egg was collected from the chickens -- presumably within a day of when it was laid. It uses a system of numbering the whole year, so Jan.1 is day one, and Dec. 31 is day 365 or 366. I'm looking at a carton that has "P1060313" as the second line. Those eggs were laid on the 313th day of the year, which is November 9: http://nsidc.org/data/tools/doy_calendar.html

Some calendars have, or used to have, this sequential numbering printed on them.

 

[Fred's Hens]

For generations now, most folks have gotten store bought eggs out of the commercial pipeline. They got used to the way they boiled and peeled too!