How long can they be under her and still be ok to eat? Yesterday I got no eggs from the 4 other girls so I took a look under the broody. I have her sitting on some fertile brown and white eggs, but there were three blue eggs under there this morning. I haven't been checking under her, just letting nature takes its course, so they may have been there for a week or more. Should they be ok to eat?? Thanks!
At the temps she would get them up to, I wouldn't trust them. I would probably toss them. Lately it seemed my girls hadn't been producing at their normal rate and I chalked it up to the weather. Lo and behold I saw one of my girls crawl out of a small hidey-hole in the barn and it had almost 3 dozen eggs in it from at least 5 different hens! No one had been brooding them, just laying them. To check if they were good, I floated them all in water. The air cell gets bigger as they age. If they sunk all the way to the bottom, they were good. If they suspend in the middle - okay for baking. If they float to the top, toss them. All mine sunk, so I put them in the fridge. Hope that helps!
Do the float test, and if they're good sinkers, they could still be edible. Anyway, I usually crack our eggs individually in a little bowl before adding them to the pan or mixing bowl, just in case a bad one accidently got into the basket. If there's webbing or growth, or even if the yolk seems too fragile, I'll dump it into the compost instead. I try to mark the eggs I leave under my broodies, I draw a line around its middle with pencil, that way I can see the mark no matter what position it's in. Then each night I peek under the broody to see if anyone's added a new egg to her clutch.