Eating eggs from a broody hen?

[WaChickenOG]

I usually collect my eggs every day or two. Today was 3 days since, and when I went out to the coop one of my hens was sitting on most of the 3 days worth of unfertilized eggs (first time I've had a broody hen). My son reported seeing the same hen occupying the nesting box yesterday too. Question; is it OK to eat these eggs that have been sat on for up to 3 days? They were very warm to the touch.

Now out to try to break this broody girl...


TIA!

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

I always say not to eat anything that isn't fresh and clean, though plenty of folks apparently will eat anything, I personally prefer not to risk getting sick. I probably would feed them back to the chickens as scrambled eggs so they weren't wasted.

 

[aart]

I always say not to eat anything that isn't fresh and clean, though plenty of folks apparently will eat anything, I personally prefer not to risk getting sick. I probably would feed them back to the chickens as scrambled eggs so they weren't wasted.

Ditto Dat^^^

Gather eggs every day.

If you don't want her to hatch out chicks, best to break her broodiness promptly.
My experience went like this: After her setting for 3 days and nights in the nest, I put her in a wire dog crate with smaller wire on the bottom but no bedding, set up on a couple of 4x4's right in the coop and I would feed her some crumble a couple times a day.

I let her out a couple times a day(you don't have to) and she would go out into the run, drop a huge turd, race around running, take a vigorous dust bath then head back to the nest... at which point I put her back in the crate. Each time her outings would lengthen a bit, eating, drinking and scratching more and on the 3rd afternoon she stayed out of the nest and went to roost that evening...event over, back to normal tho she didn't lay for another week or two.
Water nipple bottle added after pic was taken.