Eggs with cracks okay?

[schatze17]

Every once in awhile, we get an egg with a tiny, tiny crack in the shell or a small dent. They aren't crushed, just getting hit on the nesting box when the hens stand up and lay their eggs. The ones that are very cracked or dented we don't eat.

But, what about the ones with just a slight crack and nothing oozing out?

We do have padding in the nest boxes, but the girls keep kicking it out.

 

[Kelly G]

You know, I would just let those go and not eat them. Any breach of the shell is a possible entry point for bacteria.

If you feel bad "wasting" the egg, hard boil it, crush is up and feed it back to your girls. That's just my input

 

[tuesdays chicks]

I think it depends how long it sits before you find it, if you know the chicken just laid it, and plan to cook it right away go ahead the membrane shouldn't be broken, but if you plan on keeping it for awhile or you don't know how long its been sitting in the box feed it back to them.
my mother would never buy a carton of eggs from a store that had only 1 broken egg in it even if she could swap it out because eggs are porous and 1 bad 1 can contaminate the rest.

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

Quote:
+1

 

[woodmort]

I met a couple of gals back in the 50's that worked for a big General Mills plant as "egg sniffers". Their job was to sniff cracked eggs to see if they smelled rotten. If the eggs were ok, they went into cake mix. Now I'd suggest you crack and sniff your eggs and, if they smell ok, bake with them. Unless they are dirty they should be ok. My MIL used to buy "cracked eggs" at the local market all the time because it saved her money.

 

[Yay Chicks!]

That baking idea is good. I just do the hard boil thing with them and give them back to the chickens. It doesn't happen very often thankfully.

 

[schatze17]

Just an update...

DH put fake grass padding in the coop (underneath the hay) and we haven't had a cracked egg since.

 

[pgpoultry]

I do what woodmort says....never had a problem with this approach.

Sandie