Frozen Eggs?

[Berkshiremom]

Hello, well at long last my pullets have finally started to lay, I have been checking the coop 2x's a day for eggs, my question is...how can you tell if a egg is frozen? I collected one that was still warm..and one that felt cold as ice...I put both eggs in a carton in fridge...then my neighbor tells me that if an egg is frozen and if it defrost in the fridge you can't eat it, and it will make you sick..is this true? I don't know if it was frozen or not..just that it was very cold. Also how can you tell if it's frozen when you collect it? I live in Western MA, and winters are cold and long...It's seems a waste to think that all the eggs will be no good through winter....please help a newbie out..last thing I want to do is poison my family...but...we really love scrambled eggs and bacon....lol

 

[Judy]

You're not going to poison your family. Why would freezing make a food spoil?

Freezing messes up the texture of some foods, and I imagine eggs is one of them. Might not even notice it if you scramble it.

 

[PepsNick]

Yep. And remember, when you butcher a bird it goes in the FREEZER.

 

[spartacus_63]

I have found an occasional frozen egg in the coop, but the only reason I even noticed was because the shell was cracked. Those turned into puppy chow after they thawed. If any of the others froze but didn't break the shell, we never noticed. No food poisoning here.

 

[WoodlandWoman]

When it comes to frozen eggs, the thing you want to look for is cracks in the eggs. If an egg cracks badly and the interior membrane of the egg breaks, too, then you have significant contamination issues. You will be able to see the frozen contents of the egg in the crack. If an egg has very fine cracks, that are hard to see, you have less of a contamination issue. Many people still cook and eat those eggs for themselves. Others cook those and feed them to the dog or back to the chickens. If the egg doesn't have any cracks, just pop it in the frig like you usually do. There's nothing wrong with using them.

I don't know how texture or the storage length of eggs that have partially frozen, but not cracked, are effected. A fresh, clean egg with the bloom still on can be stored in the frig for up to six months. I just don't store my mid-winter eggs that long.