How do YOU store your eggs?

[Nyhillbillies]

Because we dont have anything but a tiny and I mean tiny window air unit. Our house is 1400sq and the unit is rated for 150sqft. We are what most people call poor or hillbilly or white trash take your pick. We try to keep our electric bill as small as possible. We also heat 100% with wood and have no other source of heat. Welcome to the Ozarks.

As a fellow hillbilly, I can honestly say that There’s a certain Banner of Honor to those close to the earth! When the SHTF, all these citified folks will want to know our ways!

 

[BigBlueHen53]

So what about any of you who keep them at room temperature indoors (assuming average indoor temps and not hot temps like our Ozark hillbillies)? How long can they keep on the counter?

I've read two weeks.

 

[Yardmom]

Clean, but unwashed eggs on a counter that is in a room that is not hot can be fine for a couple months. I know this from experience from when extras were left out. Our current method with eggs for our own consumption is in a skeltor on the counter used unwashed. I normally put my extra eggs in the fridge if there is room, That way an undetected cracked egg or dirty egg doesn't go bad before I check them over more carefully. The eggs in the fridge come out when we have a request from someone who wants to buy some. Then I wash just before delivery. I also candle eggs before sale. Candling makes it easier to spot cracks or if a hen sat on the egg to long. It would also show if a egg has gone bad.

 

[Happy Novogens]

A/C may not be "natural" but it sure makes life livable in Phoenix heat. There's good reason the population didn't grow significantly here until the advent of A/C. After living a couple weeks straight in 120F, few would disagree.

 

[Zud]

I generally don't wash eggs. I store them -- depending on size -- in lidded, hard-plastic egg cartons, meant for fridge use, on the counter or, for the super-sized chicken and duck eggs, on an egg skelter, like affacat's.

Sometimes, the duck eggs are just too dirty, and if I have to wash those, they go in the fridge and are used first.

I sell eggs to folks I know, and when they get their first eggs, I give them a printed sheet explaining the how's and why's of storing eggs. I include information about the protective bloom on eggs, why U.S. store eggs are washed and must be refrigerated, and that the Iowa State University Extension small animal specialist is on record saying that unwashed eggs can safely be stored without refrigeration.

Do you happen to have a copy of that printout you share with your friend/customers? I'd love to take a gander at it! I tend to ramble when I start talking to folks about this and it might help to have a bit of a script.

 

[William_Oliver_123]

I place them in a basket on the counter, and if they aren't utilised straight away, I put them in the fridge.

 

[Happy Novogens]

How many does the rack hold?

Mine holds roughly 20 eggs. The brown eggs in the one pic are extra large eggs. Probably 19 eggs on the all-brown-eggs pic.

I put fresh eggs in the skelter. Once the skelter is full, I wash them in warm water and put them in the refrig.

 

[DickMidnight]

Our house is pretty warm some days 85F+

whoa!

that can’t be right.

why so hot?

 

[Nyhillbillies]

My routine is I collect the eggs, most are clean sometimes some are dirty. I take the eggs from the coop and place them in a outside fridge ( in garage) usually within 3-4 weeks I wash every one and place in clean cartons. put them back in fridge until they are used ( I supply all 4 of my kids and family with eggs). so far this has worked out great. If I get overloaded with eggs, I start to give them to extended family or I freeze dry them when I have 72 eggs that need to be used up! Then they are good for 25 years! (food storage)

How do you freeze dry eggs?!?

 

[Nyhillbillies]

I’d like to see this older thread resurrected too. I gather the eggs every afternoon (when the ladies are done ‘paying their rent’, and put them directly in the fridge, unwashed. I wasn’t raised on a farm, chickens is a fairly new adventure for us, so my brain is still stuck on store-bought rules.
If the eggs are dirty, we just brush them off.

I saw a video that the homesteader said that if a hen lays an egg that has feces on it, it means she has worms. I don’t know if its true……