Found 16 eggs in a hidden nest in the barn! Are eggs still good?

[Mrs. K]

The other way, is to crack them open, into a small bowl before adding to your fry pan or mixing bowl, if it is bad, you will KNOW!

Cracking an egg into a small bowl used to be standard cooking procedure, that way if you had a bad egg, you did not ruin the whole pan of eggs or the whole batter.

MrsK

 

[kwale86]

We just fried 7 of them and they were all good - figured they would but just wanted to get some opinions first. Now we just have to work on getting her to start laying in the real nest again instead of on the ground in the barn. Its a covered kitty litter box with fresh hay in the bottom. She laid the first 6 in there without a problem but I guess she decided to find a more enclosed place when the weather got bad a couple weeks ago. Thanks for all the help.

 

[kwale86]

Mrs K where are you from in western South Dakota? Thats where I grew up.

 

[Mrs. K]

Really, why worry about it, as long as you know where she is laying? You can get the eggs.

However, when I have a sudden egg drop in productions, it has almost always been a secret nest. On a Saturday morning, I'll go down with my coffee and wait, till I hear the egg song. Then I know where they are.

I have found, just locking them in the run, they will start laying in the proper nest again. I usually leave them a day or too.

Also, if they pick a secret nest again, often it will be in the same place or close by, so you know where to start looking.

MrsK

 

[GeneJordan]

Ok... I will remember the sink float thing

 

[4 Love of Baby Chickens]

Some of my pullets stopped soon after they started laying around 4 years ago. I couldn't figure out what was going on. Then I heard one of my BR pullets (Pepper) squawking in the other stall and found her sitting on 22 eggs!!!!!

But I had 10 pullets then so they weren't any older than 3 days.

But I also did the float test.

 

[ScotianChick]

When my husband first had chickens around five years ago he asked me if I could help him figure out where all his eggs went. The coop has a latch door and a nice floor so no animals can get in to eat the eggs. He asked me if I'd watch the girls for a bit and see where they were hiding. I couldn't figure it out for the longest time. Then I noticed the girls scratching in front of the shed and a depression in the dirt. I walked over and reached under the shed through the depression and there were 30 eggs. I couldn't even believe it. They were all good and a multitude of colours due to the mixed flock, blue, brown, white and green and we gave them out to all of our neighbours haha. We made it so they couldn't go under there and they laid in the right spot again. With our RIR Alabama, we just recently had to block off her secret nest. She panicked after that, I just picked her up, brought her to the regular nest and shut the coop for a few minutes and waited for her to get settled. She eventually did

 

[BitsyB]

I found a hidden nest once with a dozen eggs and it was so cool! (It doesn't take much to make me happy

...)

We ate every one of those eggs, no problem, even though the nights had been dipping below freezing.

I didn't know about the float test, maybe I'll try that next time.