Share your egg management tips!

[Smokerbill]

I only wash eggs if they're really dirty, and put washed eggs in the fridge. Otherwise, if they're clean they stay on the countertop. I eat a lot of eggs, so they don't sit there very long. And if I can't keep up with eating all the eggs I get I'll give a dozen to one of my neighbors.

 

[TinyT-rexMomma]

Wash in room temp water just before we use. Otherwise the eggs stay on the counter.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

You are assuming the eggshell changes size, and especially you are assuming that the pores in the shell can change size.

I never thought to look into this before, but a bit of google searching found a paper from 1979 called "The Avian Eggshell-a Resistance Network" by R. G. BOARD
Hopefully this link will work:
https://ami-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1365-2672.1980.tb01230.x

I think this paragraph might be the most relevant:

"The work of Haines & Moran (1941) can be taken as a milestone in our understanding of the factors involved in the initiation of rotting of stored hens’ eggs.They recorded a low incidence of rots in eggs that had been immersed briefly in a bacterial suspension of the same temperature but a high incidence when the eggs were warmer than the suspension. They deduced that a small negative pressure was generated in the latter case because the contraction of the yolk and white was greater than that of the shell. This caused contaminated water to be sucked into the pore canal. Their deduction has met with general acceptance even though experimental verification is still awaited."

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find the 1941 work that was referenced, so I don't know what it actually said.

Part of the 1979 article talks about ways to get antibiotics into eggs (they wanted to hatch healthy chicks from eggs laid by sick hens), and the author considered that putting eggs in a liquid cooler than the egg was a reasonable way to do this. There is some discussion of other methods too (like making a hole in the shell.)

If all this work was done so many years ago, I am not surprised that it is now viewed as common knowledge, but that does make it harder to find explanations of why it works and how that was learned (because not all things that are "common knowledge" are actually right!)

Thank you, @NatJ, I appreciate you taking the time to do this research!

 

[SourRoses]

We don't wash but try to keep the nests really clean. Anything dirty goes in the "chicken egg" bucket that gets scrambled up for treats.

We have a variety of containers but have SO much trouble keeping eating eggs organized. Too many eggs, too few customers (out in the country).
Even my hatching egg storage is a bit overrun and keeps getting fed to the birds after a couple weeks. I get picky right as I'm setting them, but up until then it's hard to let go of possibilities. If I get a good feeling when I'm handling one, it gets set regardless of any contradictory logic *slapping forehead emoji*.
See, @Rose_adamaj , so many emoji problems.

 

[LordStark18]

Do you wash them on collection day then store in the fridge? Do you wait till you've built up a dozen, then wash and store in a clean carton? Am I overthinking this??

So far I've just been refrigerating immediately, then giving them a rinse before use. Doesn't feel very efficient, especially coming from grocery store eggs where you just crack and go.

Would love to hear what everyone else does

So for me it's a quick rinse then wipe off with some paper towel then into the fridge we are having weird temperature fluctuations at the moment so that's my option, I think if it wasn't for that I'd probably just take them in put in an egg tray on the counter and be happy to leave it like that.

 

[BDutch]

What do you guys like for cartons? I bought some paper pulp ones off Amazon, and they smelt like literal death. Trying again with US made ones. I also tried hard plastic, but the eggs rattle around too much for my sanity

We have a variety of containers but have SO much trouble keeping eating eggs organized. Too many eggs,

In winter I get no eggs from my chickens and buy eggs in cartons. I use these store bought cartons over and over again. Buying the same organic egg cartons makes it possible to stack the cartons nicely. The surplus of empty cartons from winter are saved in the barn to replace the ones that get shabby.

My eggs go in one of 15 cartons in the house with a follow up system. The cartons have letter marked on them. ABCDE..MNO. The ones that are filled go in a cupboard in the kitchen The one to fill up and the empty ones with a mark are stored in the washroom. This is where I keep the chicken feed for about a week in advance too.

To know which eggs are the oldest to eat I follow the alphabet in storing and eating. If I have more than 24 bantam eggs I keep a stack in the fridge too. Storing them two months before eating is no problem this way.

I don’t wash my eggs unless they are very dirty. I keep that egg in the fridge in an odd egg cup and eat it firstly.

 

[Sequoia Raven Bird Farms]

I store clean ones on the counter on a skelter, wash and refrigerate any dirty ones.

Where can I get one of those?

 

[PopoMyers]

I store clean ones on the counter on a skelter, wash and refrigerate any dirty ones.

Love your color assortment! What breeds do you have?

 

[PopoMyers]

I think we're going to end up storing unwashed eggs in the fridge downstairs, then bring up a dozen at a time to wash and store in the main fridge. I wish I could bring myself to eat an unwashed (clean) egg, but I can't get past this mental block. Perhaps I'll get there someday; this is still very novel for us.

What do you guys like for cartons? I bought some paper pulp ones off Amazon, and they smelt like literal death. Trying again with US made ones. I also tried hard plastic, but the eggs rattle around too much for my sanity

Depends on the size of the eggs. My girls have laid from medium when they get started, to now, Uber jumbo eggs, which prevent a normal large egg carton from closing properly. I store those in plastic duck egg containers, which I got for half price on clearance. Sometimes my friends save cartons and return cartons, and the ones from xl and jumbo work great, but I have been out of those for awhile. They don't mind getting those giant eggs.

 

[PopoMyers]

I don't wash or refrigerate them until I need to refill my stash in the fridge, since hubby uses them and I don't want him to need to wash them, or if a customer prefers them to be washed. Other than that, they are stored in a container or carton at room temp. They don't stay there very long, as I have regular customers.