lost and found a large nest of eggs!

[DobieLover]

I would say the eggs are probably ok, but if you do use them, break them open in a dish first to check them. I have eaten older eggs and they were fine and I am fine, no ill effects.

How can you check for bacterial contamination by visual examination?

If the eggs did freeze they would crack. Most likely since they were under your shed they might not have frozen.

Under the shed is out of the sun and likely colder.

I have a friend who lives in Alaska. Especially during the winter months when she gets home from work and collects the eggs they are frozen because she does not heat her coop but her coop is insulated, she put the eggs in her freezer. I have done it too and the eggs are fine and don't take long to thaw out.

I think this is generally fine because the eggs were frozen outside and stayed that way. When an egg is exposed to multiple freeze/thaw cycles all bets are off. IMO, it is too risky to eat them. I'd simply chalk it off as a loss and move on.

 

[Jessica Conley]

Chickens love secluded locations to lay. Under the shed sounds much more secluded than an open milk crate.
You might improve their preference for your nest boxes by adding some other sort of cover to the boxes to make them feel more secluded and private. There are many ways to accomplish that. I find curtains to be an easy solution for privacy for the way my coop is constructed.

Thanks, we are planning to put a slanted top/roof over the nesting boxes this spring. Sounds like we should move those plans up!

 

[DobieLover]

Thanks, we are planning to put a slanted top/roof over the nesting boxes this spring. Sounds like we should move those plans up!

 

[WVduckchick]

Do any of the girls act broody? Could they have started the eggs incubating?

I'd candle them first, to look for any development. Toss those. Larger air cells are older eggs, so you can test them in a bowl of water, if they sink, they should still be good to eat (crack in a separate bowl first, as someone already said). Standing vertical in the water, but still close to the bottom are older but still ok to eat. Floaters are questionable. Would depend how badly I needed them. lol

 

[cmom]

How can you check for bacterial contamination by visual examination?
Under the shed is out of the sun and likely colder.
I think this is generally fine because the eggs were frozen outside and stayed that way. When an egg is exposed to multiple freeze/thaw cycles all bets are off. IMO, it is too risky to eat them. I'd simply chalk it off as a loss and move on.

I'm not telling the OP to eat the eggs. She can throw them out. I look at them and smell them and if they look and smell ok, I cook them and eat them. If I'm unsure of how long they were outside I would feed them to the crows. There are times when I have had eggs and I have had an over abundance for over two weeks and they are fine. The OP stated that she had noticed for about 2 weeks so the birds were laying fewer eggs and had probably started laying under the shed then and it was probably cold enough where they may have frozen but times when I have frozen eggs, the eggs will crack when frozen because they expand. The birds do put bloom on the eggs to keep bacteria out and I'm sure the bacteria isn't going to live in a fry pan.

Mother Earth News did an article several years ago on how long and on different ways to store eggs. They had some eggs that were edible after several months.

 

[cmom]

I have a bird that is broody right now.

 

[aart]

I wouldn't eat those eggs.

Free range birds sometimes need to be 'trained'(or re-trained) to lay in the coop nests, especially new layers. Leaving them locked in the coop for a week or so can help 'home' them to lay in the coop nests. Fake eggs/golf balls in the nests can help 'show' them were to lay. They can be confined to coop and maybe run 24/7 for a few days to a week, provided you have adequate space and ventilation, or confine them at least until mid to late afternoon. You help them create a new habit and they will usually stick with it. ..at least for a good while, then repeat as necessary.

 

[WVduckchick]

I almost always have an over-abundance of eggs, so even dirty ones usually get tossed (cracked open for fertility checks before disposal though). I replied under the assumption that they wanted to eat them. Some of the eggs, the most recently laid ones "should" still be fine to eat. Determining which ones isn't really that difficult. JMHO

 

[cmom]

First I do the float test and if any float or look questionable I discard them, but I do break them open to inspect, I'm just curious.

 

[NinjaChicken617]

Hello, I would first say I love my girls! (and my rooster) Over the past two weeks our daily egg total has dropped which was not unexpected. It is winter after all. I do have 6 sex links that I expected to lay fairly regularly. Our egg count continued to decline and I could not figure out why. Everyone looked healthy and acted normally. Yesterday something next to our shed caught my eye. When I looked under it there were 31 eggs! I have no idea why they started laying eggs there or even when. The eggs are mostly all from our 6 Leghorns with a few brown eggs from the others. Are these eggs ok? My husband is worried because they likely froze and thawed a few times. The temps haven't gotten above 40 degrees. We collected them and have them in the fridge but wanted another opinion. Now about my girls laying under the shed.....since I removed all the eggs, they are back to laying in their nesting boxes. I am guessing that one or two of them laid under the shed and that started a whole new routine for them until I removed the eggs. Should I be concerned about them laying outside of their nesting boxes?

The same thing just happened to a friend of mine this past week. Her coop is actually a section of her barn, which she thought was secure, but it turns out someone (or several someones) figured out how to get upstairs to the hayloft. Her son went up to the loft to get the Christmas decorations that were stored up there and found a makeshift nest with about 30 eggs that were all frozen solid. My friend breeds chickens and sells pullets so her flock is always rotating and it's never exactly clear how many hens she has that are laying at any given time. Since there's no way to know how long those eggs were hanging around, they got rid of them. If you're not sure whether your eggs are still OK, I would keep them and check out each one as you go to use it. I've never had a bad egg, but my understanding is that it's pretty obvious if an egg is bad. Personally, if I ever have any doubt I throw it out.