So I am watching my neigbhor's chicken flock of a million, again, and pulled some eggs out from under one of their hens. Any eggs they want to keep and have hatch out are always marked with an "x", and these were not. Anyway, I did the water test and these eggs were almost floating, so for curiosity sake, I decided to try to candle them. I looked up on line at BYC and saw some great pics of what different stages could look like. I headed off to my dark bathroom, flashilight in hand and gave it a go. From what I could tell, all but one looked like the stage where they could be infected with bacteria, spotted all over. Now mind you, my neighbors don't pull eggs as often as they should, hence the gazillion chickens that they have, so I don't know how old these eggs are. The hen that was on them is always sitting everytime I see her, and who knows how long ago they even checked the eggs under her. Although they freerange during the day, my neighbors coops are filled with 2 - 3 inches of poo * everywhere but the roof *, they are really bad. Needless to say, the eggs, unless gathered early, are covered in mass amounts of poo. A little poo that I can brush off, no problem, but these would need to be scrubbed with soap and water big time. Sorry for the long story, but my question is, if the egg is showing signs of bacteria growth like this, is it ok to still eat them? I have no plans to eat them, but it made me curious. What causes the egg to be infected with bacteria, being in all that poo?
Thanks for any input!
Thanks for any input!