Egg storage

[subhanalah]

How long eggs are viable for sale is not related to how many you sell or where you sell them.  

He just forgot his punctuation, no big deal.
Happens all the time in cyber space

 

[KieksterChicken]

Lol! I apologized ahead of time about my post being off topic as I posted my question to begin with. I do live in Florida. I haven't sold any of my eggs yet anyways. I barter a half dozen once a week at the farmers market for 3 or 4 crates of veggies for my chickens. Technically that isn't selling, lol! Can't beat that. I just have to sort through the crates and throw away anything moldy or overly ripe and I refrigerate the rest. My girls get fresh veggies and greens every day..They are spoiled but healthy, gorgeous divas.

 

[Jipus5]

Just promise.... you WON"T ever use a chemical or especially bleach to wash your eggs!! Thats just... well anyway. It is not needed. I have handled eggs in every way, at every age for years now.... even had an incubated egg that had died early on and i didn't know it, explode on me.... never got sick from that even! And I would never want to wash my food with bleach! Besides your wanting to eat what is on the inside., not the outside. So leave it the way the hen left it for ya.. I have eaten eggs 4 months old from my fridge, and a month old from my counter... but that's me.

 

[Cindy in PA]

Unless you have really dirty eggs, you don't really need to wash them. Just use something like a scotch brite pad to wipe off a smudge etc.

 

[RoarkFarm]

For a newbie that has just got my first hens, about 3wks old, this has been informative and entertaining.... Having said that, I had a sister almost die from samonella poisning when we where very young(most likely spoiled meat) so I am somewhat over leary if you will.

AFter reading the thread I have gathered that not washing is best for long term storage, fridged or not. I plan to cold store as I have a spare that is not in use and the $15 bucks a month to run it is good peace of mind for me. But help me understand this..... I would think that washing just prior to usage would be a must as the cold storage does not necessarily kill the virus, correct? After all, the egg travels the same path as excrement....

Another thought that I would like some input on: I had someone tell me that you can rub the outside of egg with mineral oil and it will prolong shelf life, any truth to that?

 

[rojororeo]

I sell a lot of mine to "city folk" as well, but I don't wash them. I have a little print out for first time buyers explaining the bloom and a link to the MEN article. If one of my customers wants the eggs washed, I charge them an extra dollar per dozen. Funny how that extra charge will change minds more than the article.

I also weigh and date each egg that I collect. Usually none are any older than 2 weeks.

That is awesome- amazing how it is the extra work that gets them! I loved that article!

If you DO wash with water only, wash with hotter water, as cold water will draw the contents of the eggs inward. And since the shell is porous, you'll draw external contaminants in as well.

That said, I never wash nor cold store my eggs. Go to Europe where it is (often) illegal to wash and refrigerate eggs for sale to change your perspective. Here in the U.S., it's just the opposite, and we've been conditioned to fear natural states of things. I remember in France being told "Americans like dead cheese. Here in France, we know cheese is alive!" I think it's much the same thing. There is a mental block that says "eggs must be refrigerated."

And for the record, I store mine inside in a large wicker basket lined with cloth "bedding." My apartment is always between 70-80 degrees, and I've had eggs last months. The typical duration is 2 weeks - 2 months, depending on the season.

I do agree with this GentFarmer. So many Americans fear sickness and germs. I am not at all overbearing about germs... I clean my counters with nothing more than a reused sponge most days... they get cleaned with a light bleach mixture maybe once a month at most... we, knock on wood, are hardly ever sick, never really any stomach bugs.... Your storage sounds neat.

For a newbie that has just got my first hens, about 3wks old, this has been informative and entertaining.... Having said that, I had a sister almost die from samonella poisning when we where very young(most likely spoiled meat) so I am somewhat over leary if you will.

AFter reading the thread I have gathered that not washing is best for long term storage, fridged or not. I plan to cold store as I have a spare that is not in use and the $15 bucks a month to run it is good peace of mind for me. But help me understand this..... I would think that washing just prior to usage would be a must as the cold storage does not necessarily kill the virus, correct? After all, the egg travels the same path as excrement....

Another thought that I would like some input on: I had someone tell me that you can rub the outside of egg with mineral oil and it will prolong shelf life, any truth to that?

I have read that you can most certainly mineral oil store them. I don't think it matters if you wash them or not, though obviously not washing would be better for storage purposes. I never did get around to oil storing our eggs, but if I was storing for the zombie apocalypse, that is what I would do. And obviously even oiled, they would still do better to be cold stored as well.
Also, others correct me if I am wrong... but didn't studies show that home reared chickens and eggs typically don't have salmonella nearly as much? I know I clean chicken poop everyday, handle chickens, handle eggs, I don't have the years some on this forum have, but I have yet to get sick from it.

 

[IttyBiddyRedHen]

If they are THAT dirty, as not need something stronger than clean water for washing.....cook them up and feed them back to the birds...or dogs.

 

[KieksterChicken]

I am most certainly going to try the not washing and leaving out method. I usually wash my eggs with mild soap and cold water and then store them in the refrigerator. Does washing with mild soap and cold water also accelerate spoilage? I also read somewhere that mineral oil does contain mild poisons and is never recommended to be used on anything you use to prepare food such as a cutting board ( some people use food grade oil on cutting boards to preserve the wood after cleaning them.). So I am wondering why it's okay to use mineral oil on eggs then. I'm thinking some of the chemical components of the oil would contaminate the contents. I read that peanut oil is a better oil to use since it's food grade, but I have never tried either of them.

 

[CarolinaHen]

If they are THAT dirty, as not need something stronger than clean water for washing.....cook them up and feed them back to the birds...or dogs.

Or clean the nest boxes..............

 

[Triple Willow]

Just promise.... you WON"T ever use a chemical or especially bleach to wash your eggs!!  Thats just... well anyway.  It is not needed.  I have handled eggs in every way, at every age for years now.... even had an incubated egg that had died early on and i didn't know it, explode on me....  never got sick from that even!    And I would never want to wash my food with bleach!  Besides your wanting to eat what is on the inside., not the outside. So leave it the way the hen left it for ya.. I have eaten eggs 4 months old from my fridge, and a month old from my counter... but that's me.  

I hate to break the news to you BUT it is a government requirement that raw chicken be treated with water that has bleach in it. There are regulations as to how many ppm of bleach can be in the water, but it is there. They are sprayed with it and even soaked in it. If they didn't use bleach there would be a lot of sick and dead people because of the extremely high volume of chicken that passes through a processing plant each working day. So, if you have ever eat chicken in a restaurant or from a grocery you have had chicken that has had bleach on it. I don't see a real *small* amount of bleach on eggs nearly as bad as the raw meat being soaked in it. *But I don't use bleach on my eggs or on the chickens I slaughter. But if I ever do slaughter a larger amount of birds at one time I will have some very mild bleach water handy just in case I mess up and tear or cut into the intestines.