Rotten eggs

[Whiskers]

Hi there, I need help! I have around 50 free range chickens which lay around 2 1/2 dozen eggs a day. The eggs are collected daily and cleaned (by wiping with a damp cloth). Then they are put into cartons and then into my cool room which is set a 4.c I generally sell them within the week of being layed. I had a customer who regularly buys them come back to me and say that she has had around 4 rotten eggs in her cartons over a 2 week period. Occasionally I have also cracked one fresh egg into my pan of bacon and eggs and it to has been runny, discoloured and had a slightly tainted smell. I don't know what is going on? I do have a few broody chooks that sit on the eggs all day sometimes before egg collection but I thought that this would not be the cause of it because they only sit on them for a few hours? They are fed on a mixture of grains and pellets and are left to roam our property during the day. Is there someway that I can check, separate and discard these rotten eggs so that i can keep my customers happy? Thanks

 

[enola]

Selling eggs requires gathering ALL of the eggs, every day. Are they hiding nests?

 

[chicksurreal]

We free-range our chickens and only gather from places that are checked several times daily. I've found tons of eggs in areas that we didn't know about and those eggs get scrambled for chickens or given to ravens.

 

[Folly's place]

Somehow you are missing some eggs for too long. Set up nests that are checked daily, and toss any suspect eggs. Feeding spoiled eggs isn't a good idea either; recycling can go too far, IMO. Consider evaluating ALL the eggs produced for a few days; candle them, and crack them open individually. See if there's a pattern, as spoiled eggs from one site, or a certain hen. You might have to check for Salmonella or some other problem. I wouldn't be selling any eggs until this problem is fixed. Good luck! Mary

 

[chicksurreal]

Somehow you are missing some eggs for too long. Set up nests that are checked daily, and toss any suspect eggs. Feeding spoiled eggs isn't a good idea either; recycling can go too far, IMO. Consider evaluating ALL the eggs produced for a few days; candle them, and crack them open individually. See if there's a pattern, as spoiled eggs from one site, or a certain hen. You might have to check for Salmonella or some other problem. I wouldn't be selling any eggs until this problem is fixed. Good luck! Mary

True. I wouldn't want to feed spoiled eggs to anybody, pets or wild bird included. We've never had spoiled eggs, so I guess I shouldn't encourage anyone who has had them to feed them to anybody...