Secret nest.

[araeihrig]

I found a secret nest in my hay barn that my chickens have apparently taken to. I found 11 eggs in there. I only have 4 laying birds and 1 of them is still molting pretty good. My question is: How do I know if the eggs are any good? Do I see if they float?

I haven't noticed this nest before.

 

[araeihrig]

This one broke when I was drying it off.

 

[krista74]

Yep, exactly.

Get a large, deep glass of water and dip each egg into it separately.

A 'good' or fresh egg will sink to the bottom.

A 'bad' or stale egg will float up near the top.

An egg that sinks to the bottom of the glass, but stands on it's end or at an angle is ok to eat, but you need to eat it now, not in a week's time.

The egg test relies on the air bubble in the egg. The older the egg, the bigger the air bubble becomes - hence the floating.

Hope this helps!

- Krista

PS: Sneaky, sneaky little birdies you have there, hiding their eggs!

 

[dheltzel]

When I find a nest like that, I examine the shell of each egg, if it is shiny and doesn't have the finish and texture of a fresh egg, it gets tossed. The ones that look good get gently shaken, any sloshing sound or movement gets that one tossed as well. We never sell the remaining suspect eggs, but put them in the fridge for personal use and crack them individually in a bowl to check their appearance before cooking them.

Floating is another test, but I can weed out the really bad ones before that and the rest are safe enough to crack and examine.

 

[araeihrig]

Thank you guys! I was just getting hay for the horses and looked over and saw all of these eggs off to the side. I was just like "what the..?"

 

[LaylaFlora]

I have a friend who found a secret nest last month that had 29 eggs in it. She floated them and only had to get rid of 3 that were questionable. All the rest sank. Thank goodness!

 

[araeihrig]

I have a friend who found a secret nest last month that had 29 eggs in it. She floated them and only had to get rid of 3 that were questionable. All the rest sank. Thank goodness!

Wow! That's a lot of eggs!

 

[DeltaQuebec]

I have a friend who found a secret nest last month that had 29 eggs in it. She floated them and only had to get rid of 3 that were questionable. All the rest sank. Thank goodness!

I just found a nest in my Puma Grass. It had 22 eggs. I knew she'd been hiding them, but I couldn't find them until I heard her cooing in there. Time to do the float test.

 

[Mrs. K]

I never bother with the float test, and really depending where you are, it has been just about as cool as a fridge.

I just open them in a bowl before cooking or baking.

Mrs K