How can you tell a good egg from a bad egg?

[chicken-owner-31]

I am brand spanking new to chickens, so please be a tad patient with me!

I have three hens.......all meat birds. Two of them are only about 6 months old and haven't started laying yet. But they have always had a good chicken feed....I switched them onto the laying stuff a few months back. Anyway, the third hen I recently got. She ate whatever she could find, mostly horse grain as she lived in a stable. My kids have found a few eggs she has laid, but they just don't look right to me. I am 99% positive these eggs came from her and not my two young ones.

The eggs are not smooth, they are kinda lumpy looking. It looks like there is extra shell "deposits" on them. I hadn't cracked any open because I was scared to try to cook them. This morning, I decided to crack one open and feed it to the cat.....and the sucker had THREE yolks in it!

I know that's not normal! Would it be her previous bad diet that would cause this? I am scared to eat the eggs, honestly, but the kids can't wait. So how can I tell if an egg is good or bad?

Thanks for the advice!!!!

 

[silkiechicken]

Egg is fine. When layers are new at popping out eggs, often they don't quite have the one yolk, one shell, exit thing down. Double yolkers are common, and you are lucky to get a tripple yolker! Eat away!

 

[chicken-owner-31]

Well, I did read somewhere that if the white in the egg is cloudy, it means it's freash. It was cloudy, although I have to admit, there wasn't a whole lot of it! That was one HUGE egg too, poor birdie butt! Hahaha!

Ok, so it's ok.......well, that's good to know. Thanks!

Another question. I do have a rooster in there, so is there a major difference between eating a fertilized egg and a non fertilized one? I would doubt that double (or triple) yolk eggs even got fertilized, but the thought kinda freaks me out!

Oh, and also....there was a little smearing of poo on it.....is it ok to wash the egg? I have heard it's bad to wash one. ???

This forum has been awesome, I really appreciate the help!!!!

 

[silkiechicken]

There is absolutely nothing nutritionally different between fertilized and non fertilized eggs until you incubate it. I bet each yolk is fertilized because the yolk gets fertilized before the rest of the egg forms. The to wash and not to wash is a debatable topic. If you do a search on fertilized eggs for eating and wash or not wash eggs, there are a number of threads on it.

 

[SandraChick]

an additional way to tell if eggs are still good or not is the float test.

Put water in a something deep enough to submerse an egg completely. If it sinks...then it's good, if it floats...then it's bad. If it only sort of floats...but still touches the bottom....I call that good enough cooked for the dog or the other chickens!


I use this method whenever I find a hidden egg stash....works great.
Sandra