I live in central minnesota, evertything I have read for those of you more experienced with chickens than me tells me not to heat my coop unless the chickens "tell me" they are cold. So what about the eggs, I don't collect them until I get home at night... about 5pm. Most of my chickens lay before 12 or so, but I have one that doesn't lay until around 3.. Do I have to get someone to come in and collect the eggs earlier than 5??
If your coop has no drafts and is tight, the eggs should not freeze. A few years ago I had a hen hatch eggs under some blackberrys that was covered with snow, so I know they didn't even get cold.
I was wondering the same thing. What if it is around 10 degrees all day and I get the eggs at 5 p.m.? Will the eggs be ruined?
There is a thread on this. Actually If I get any eggs out of the nest boxes that are cracked but the membrane is in tact, I put them in the freezer and use them when I bake. They peel nice and I put the frozen egg in a small dish and let it thaw out. Frozen eggs do crack the shells. I have eaten eggs that have been frozen and the only thing I noticed is that after they have frozen they aren't as tall as fresh eggs.
When I was visiting my sister in VA last February (a very snowy month), she told me that she'd heard that frozen eggs were ok to eat, and sure enough, they were often frozen by the time we collected them, and they tasted great when we cooked them.
We get the really cold weather here, too. If eggs are left in the coop all day, there will be times when they freeze here. Other times, they won't, even if it's cold enough to freeze them. It depends on just how cold the coop is, how long the egg has to sit there and whether another chicken lays on it, as it's laying it's own egg. Chickens sharing a nest is a great thing in the winter! A coop that's only a little below freezing won't freeze eggs as fast as a coop that's well below freezing. I would cook a cracked egg thoroughly, before eating. Some people feed them to their dogs or back to the chickens. Sometimes, it just depends on how big the crack is and whether anything may have gotten inside the egg. Some eggs can be barely cracked, with hairline fractures you have trouble even seeing and others have a real chasm there.
If you need the eggs to be unfrozen for sale or hatching, I have put a very low heat pet bed warmer in the nest box. This is the kind that only uses about 10 watts and is meant to warm the part of the pet that touches it but not the surrounding air at all. It will not even warm up the bedding if it gets covered. If the hens are ok with laying directly on these, they will keep the egg unfrozen and viable, but will not heat it more than a chicken sitting on it would. And of course some chickens figure this out and spend a lot of time sitting in that nest to keep their feet warm.
I'm afraid some of my eggs will probably freeze too but now for my really dumb question, how can you tell if they are frozen? If they crack?
I've had them freeze during the day and I'm only in Ohio, so do expect them to from time to time. A frozen egg isn't a big deal unless it's cracked; then of course there's the danger of contamination. If it's not cracked and you suspect it had a chance to freeze, just put it in the eating pile instead of the hatching pile (if you're so inclined). If it is cracked, scramble it and feed it back to the chicken and they'll make it into more eggs for you.
