Rotten eggs?? WTHeck??

[Beechick2943]

I have 13 chickens variable breeds. They are mostly free range. I do the deep litter method in their coop and the laying boxes are, for the most part, kept very clean. But almost every day when I gather the eggs there is a lot of mud and some poop on them. Recently over the last 4 to 6 months every once in a while we get an egg that is actually rotten! And by rotten I mean one egg we cracked actually was black inside! Another time my daughter has hard boiled the eggs and they were rotten! Green and slimy. I typically don't wash my eggs unless they are very dirty then I will just either use a wet paper towel and wipe off. If they are super dirty I wash them off with water and let them dry then put them in the refrigerator right away. I also gather my eggs right away. I never let them sit longer than one day in the coop. Has anybody else had this problem? I feed them new Nutrena feed along with any other organic food from my garden i.e. tomatoes, pumpkins, squash, bread, anything that they will eat. So they are very well fed. I did give them some diatomaceous earth the other day thinking it could be worms. But I have never heard of rotten eggs. HELP!!

 

[junebuggena]

Washed eggs need to be used within 24 hours. Once you remove the bloom, the egg become vulnerable to bacteria. If you washed the egg and put it in the fridge, but then lost track of which egg it was that need to be eaten first and it stayed in there too long, it's very possible for it to go bad.

 

[sylviethecochin]

Occasionally, we get eggs like that. I've been told it's caused by a bacterial infection in the hen, but since it only happens occasionally and we have over twenty hens, I have no chance of tracking down the culprit.

Just crack into a separate bowl before cooking. Or candle your eggs before storing them. Either works for black yolks.

Truly rotten eggs (liquid has turned into gas, yolk has partially decomposed, but is not black) can be detected via float test: you just put all the eggs in water and the ones that float are rotten.

 

[Beechick2943]

Thanks for the replies. I've been raising layers for 4 years and have always washed the real dirty eggs. This is the first time I have had this issue. It leads me to believe why I may have an infected hen. But like you I have 13 hens so figuring out who is the culprit is nearly impossible! They all look very healthy. I'll just continue to crack them open in a separate dish and /or do the float test

 

[cottontail farm]

I always wash all eggs because my kitchen is a "poop free zone" lol.
They still last for weeks in the fridge so I don't think that's the problem.
Are you sure they're actually rotten? I mean they look horrible but do the eggs float? Are the yolks flat? Or is something else happening?
You say they free range: i have read on here (but never personally experienced) yolks having off colors due to the hens getting into certain plants/seeds.
I wonder if they are all coming from one hen... Can an internal problem cause a black yolk? Just thinking outloud...

 

[NanaKat]

If you can tell the difference in your hens then try the food coloring trick. Put a drop of a food color in the vent of a hen.
There are four colors in a box at the grocery.
Keep a record of which hen got which color. As the hen lays her egg, it will be streaked by the food color. Do this exactly the same for several days if your hens are skipping days laying.

You can mix more colors...using red, yellow and blue
1 drop red and 2 drops yellow = orange.
1 drop blue and 1 drop red = purple
1 drop purple and 2 drops yellow = brown
1 drop blue and 2 drops yellow = green

This gives you 7 colors for 7 hens. If you can divide you flock in to two groups, you can monitor the egg laying and narrow down to finding the bad egg layers.

 

[aart]

Washed eggs need to be used within 24 hours.

Never heard this one.
A cracked egg maybe, but not an intact egg that has been washed properly.

ETA: I'm betting that black yolk came that way from the follicle.

 

[21hens-incharge]

DE does not treat a worm infestation or any other infestation.

If worms are suspected it is best to have a vet do a fecal float test. It is not expensive and it will help in choosing the right worming medicine.

I never heard that a washed egg had to be used within 24 hours either.

I sometimes find an egg with a nearly invisible crack. Those end up in the trash.

 

[chickens really]

A rotten egg will smell horrid ...Hmm? I never heard of that..?