How long after an egg is layed???

[lindamass15]

How long after an egg is lay can it still be consideren fresh? I can only collect my eggs once a week and was wondering if it is ok to leave it in the nest that long? I dont think anyone of the 3 layer will actually sit on it.

linda

 

[freshegg]

If the weather isnt too cold or too hot I would say they are fresh. why not collect daily when you water them?

 

[Ridgerunner]

I'll give my opinion and some of my reasoning to try to help.

First, I assume you are in Massachusetts by your name. I found that it sometimes helps people answer questions if they know what climate you are in. You can go into profile and set it up to show your location. It took me a little while to start doing this, but I finally did.

In theory and depending on your climate, yes, the eggs will stay safe to eat as long as they don't freeze or get too hot. Many people have posted on here that they store an egg at room temperature for a couple of weeks and it still is fresh enough to hatch. A hen will normally lay a nestful of eggs before she goes broody. At one a day, this will be 10 to 12 days. If they are able to hatch, they should be safe to eat.

I do not think it is a good idea. First, leaving eggs out like that is an added attraction to predators, especially at night. I'm thinking especially rats, but others could be atttracted. And once they find a good reliable food source, they will be back.

Leaving eggs in an active nest like that greatly increases the risk of one getting broken by accident. Then the other eggs get coated with raw egg. Egg shells are porous. They have to be so the developing baby can breath. So an egg with rotten egg on the surface will take in bacteria and also spoil.

An even bigger problem is that, if an egg, gets broken, the hens will eat the shell and all the egg they can. This can teach them to be egg-eaters, which means you get no eggs at all and have a real mess in the nest.

I don't understand your circumstances as to why you can only collect the eggs once a week. That raises a lot of questions about how you are going to see that they are fed, watered, an protected from predators, but that is not your question. I think you will be a lot better off giving a neighbor some of the eggs they collect if you can arrange that.

 

[lindamass15]

I wanted more than I can have so my bf ends up having to build a separte coop on sister farm in WI which is about 75 miles away and I can only afford to drive up there once or twice a week, when I'm not there then his sister feeds them and give them water, but she dosent go into the coop.

I feel like I'm so lucky because at first I asked for a pigeon loft got that then with a little bugging and

he build me a chicken coop

 

[Ridgerunner]

I still think you would be better off if you can find a neighbor of your sisters to collect the eggs daily and share, but we all have to do the best we can with what we have. Good luck.

 

[lindamass15]

Sorry I'm in Minnesota, when we build our coop and loft I was kind of more on the crazy side and made bf and all 5 of my brothers cover the entire floor with wire and then cover it back up with dirt, so its more like the coop is sitting in an extra big wire cage. I have actually seen a lot of hawks in that area also so I made them competly cover the run also, but I made sure its really big (at the time he wanted to kill me because I kept asking him for a little more space, but now he agrees because I get to keep what i want first) So they only get to free range when I'm out there.

 

[lindamass15]

I dont really mind who gets the egg because my dumb bf doesn't like to eat egg or the smell of it, after so many years of being with him I seem to have also stay away from eating eggs cause that just makes both our life easier. I usually collects them and give them to his sister kids or anybody who wants them.