For eating? When it smells bad.. As for hatching?? Beats me! I have my eggs in a basket on my counter...Never had a "bad one".
To me fresh eggs are a few days old. Maybe 3. Otherwise they are just.... eggs. I sell my eggs literally as fast as they are laid. Talk about fresh. I have waited to do egg deliveries until that one last egg is laid to make a dozen. I have tried singing to my chickens to make them lay faster, tried having a radio, tried begging, nothing. They lay when they want to. Which, is kind of the long story of what I am tryig to say. Haha.
To quantify what is or is not fresh, I would say using the egg float test, a fesh egg to me is one that lays on the bottom, hence a not fresh egg is one where it starts to float off the bottom.
I just saying this, but there are people who put out signs for fresh eggs. There eggs are just eggs. Not necessarily within 3 days. Funny... I always thought the term fresh eggs was just a way to make the eggs sound more appealing, not that they are necessarily fresh.
