Egg hunt around here:

[RobotChicken]

ok so one of the chickens, the first one to start laying, had decided to no longer lay in the nesting box, and found some random place in the yard to hide eggs.

Well I had been pulling my hair out trying to find it, turns out it was in a fairly simply place, behind a radiator in the corner of the yard she found a secluded spot.

Managed to catch her yesterday just after she was done laying and made her egg song(gave me an audible indication of her location and was able to find her and the eggs from there).

Found a dozen eggs including the one she just laid. Separated the one she just laid from the rest, most are probably still good, but the rest are questionable since they have been outside for up to 2 weeks.

So then I come home today after a rather frustrating morning and discover that Zeus grabbed a few eggs from kitchen, found one on his dog bed and another on the couch.

They say golden retrievers have gentle mouths, its true, washed off the slobbery eggs and put them back in the bowl.

Oh, and I'm also annoyed with my roomate who ate my double yolker egg without asking.

 

[CrazyCatNChickenLady]

I'm still finding cracked/broken/old/rotten eggs from when my girls first started laying around the property. . .!

The only thing that got mine to lay in the nesting boxes is golf balls. (2 per nest) and they'll only lay in with the balls.. took the balls out and continued the easter egg hunt! so there are about 8 golf balls in my coop at all times for my stubborn ladies!!

and holy cow what a nest she has going! With the eggs unwashed they can last longer (i've heard up to a month unwashed if not in the fridge!!) I wouldn't eat 'em that old, but try the 'float' trick. place GENTLY in a bowl of water. if it floats its bad, sinks its still good! Unless its been REALLY HOT i'd probably eat em! (or feed em to DBF, he eats anything!) or you can hard boil and feed em back to the birds!

 

[RobotChicken]

Quote:
I leave my eggs unwashed and stored on the countertop, in the winter that means room temps between 55-60F(I like it could and I like my lower utility bills), during the summer that means ~75 overall temp.

I've eaten eggs that were at those temps that were up to 6 weeks old, they tasted fine, I didn't get sick or anything, sometimes if I get some really old ones I will just cook them up and feed them back to the hens, I will probably scramble these up and serve them to the birds.

They are probably still fine to eat, night time temps are down in the high 30s or low 40s still, and they were on the ground in the shade, but I don't feel like finding out for sure.


I'm pretty sure the reason she started laying in the yard is that I only have one nesting box, and she got tired of waiting. I need to build a better coop, with two nesting boxes, even though they will probably just all use the same one like always.

Thing is, I noticed when she stopped laying in the box, but for two weeks I couldn't find where she was going, it wasn't untill I was outside at the right time to catch the egg song did I figure it out.

 

[Red&Yellow]

Haha. One of our EEs did that, but she 'flew the coop', literally. Our EE coop had its 6ft+ top rusting away, so good ol' adventurous Bluebell decides she dosen't want to stay or lay her eggs in the coop anymore. I found her late one night after checking in on the birds and seeing her missing. It was late November so I was worried. She was hunky-dory! There was an old cabinet that was broken and was laying on the ground a few yards from the coop, and dear Bluebell had been laying there for a good while, at least a week. She had been sitting on them, happy as a lark, but very sleepy. I took her back to the coop, gathered her eggs, ripped up the old cabinet (very flimsy wood) and made a note to fix the coop top! Oh, and although all the eggs were fertilized, she was not an expantant mother-she didn't care for the idea of hatching all those eggs!

Bluebell is quite a quirky bird.

Oh, and after a year without chickens (gasp! it was horrible

) we found an old egg that was sitting in the run. Surprisingly, it didn't smell too much when we broke it open in the woods.