To wash or not to wash eggs?

[Chicken Rox]

We do wash our eggs using water that is warmer than the egg. A clean coop and yard does help keep eggs looking clean but with this years rainy summer, we have had many muddy eggs. In the USA it is a common practice to wash, but I have heard than in many European countries it is illegal!

 

[Bird-isthe-word]

I wash and refrigerate mine. Why? Because I grew up with store eggs and don't know any better. I have finally just decided it is OK to have eggs in a coop more then a couple of hours. After reading the posts it seems like a preference and both work. I plan on slowly stepping away from the sink and fridge but it will be baby steps!

 

[Chambertin]

A stiff brissled brush makes a great poo flicker and it leaves the bloom. I like the boar brissle brushes just for cleaning shells with a little poo stuck to the side. Having said that sometimes I wash eggs too because an egg breaks in the nest from time to time. Im not sure of the shelf life of an egg covered in yolk??? So I wash my eggs but I try to not have to. I do use the eggs I washed before eggs not washed.
I have found keeping a clean coop and clean litter in the nesting boxes plus collecting eggs in a timely manner greatly decreases both dirty and broken eggs.
By timely manner I mean STUDY YOUR FLOCK and find out what time of day your birds are on the nests. Then watch them girls to see when the last hen gets off her nest. Check the time but more importantly check the position of the sun. Chickens don't have watches the sun is her watch. If you do this long enough you will find that each hen has her own routine and time of day she wants to lay. So if your hens are all done by 1:30, like mine, it is safe to assume you can collect all the eggs that will be laid that day at by 2. Remember each hen is an individual and your flock may lay earlier or later but getting to all of a day's eggs at one time has helped me collect more and cleaner eggs.

Great advice, knowing how your flock acts is paramount to getting good clean eggs. (and keeping everyone healthy)
We have a large number who like to lay in the morning regardless of the 26 hour cycle. Most of them take their day off when it gets to laying after 1pm, just too much work when the sun is up and full.
I tried the brushes and wipes, but they didnt work as well as a quick flick or if the egg is covered beyond recovery its cooked & recycled to the girls right away. I'm not crazy, an egg laid in the sticky morning pile isnt for me, but a footprint, or a blob doesnt scare me.
If I can flick the big piece off that little bit left on wont kill me or make me sick. Also our girls are all well used to the nest boxes outside the coop door and those stay clean naturally.
I think having the nests outside the coop promotes cleanliness and they get much less traffic outside of egg business.

We do clean the coop daily, but thats because we have roosts that have poop boards under them. The floor is concrete so a basic sweep and the whole deal is done in about 5 minutes with more than 20 birds.
The nice thing is it can easily go 2 days if there was a little too much activity the previous night, but why not do it every day?

If people want to wash and refrigerate their eggs then so be it.
I took a while to get out of my conditioning too.
Some people have to lock their door 3 times in a row before they can go outside comfortably, everyone is different.
I'm just saying all that trouble isnt protecting you any better than what nature already does.

 

[Sin City Chicks]

You can wash your eggs if you like, and if you want them to last for months, coat the eggs with food grade mineral oil , it's what your grandparents did , before we had refrigerators.

I was going to post this as well. If you choose to wash your eggs causing them to lose the bloom, then all you have to do is rub them in mineral oil and they will last on your counter or in dry storage for up to 9 months! Just remember to date the cartons.

We haven't decided yet what we are going to do. Our girls won't be laying for a few more weeks. This is a great thread!

 

[Hannah11]

oh man this post makes me sound terrible.... I have around 10 laying hens at the moment and they free range over a few acres and eat all organic, I never clean the eggs- ever even the poopy ones (they lay all over the show so I have an egg hunt every day as they don't bother with their clean new nest boxes I don't mind ) I really don't even mind cracking a poopy egg in my food.... they sit on the counter, and because of the egg hunt all i do is dunk in cup of water to check if they are not rotten due to not knowing where they lay and when half the time I have never been sick and really think the fuss is just personal preference.... i know my way is not everyones way

Although when i give to friends so they don't buy battery produced eggs i give them a wipe with paper towel and tell them to refrigerate if they haven't had many farm fresh eggs I don't want to scare them off yummy free range organic eggs

 

[Sophia5]

If I have manure on my chickens eggs I simply just rub it off with fine sandpaper.

 

[chickenlove 123]

The only thing to remember about eggs being left in the coop all day in very hot weather is the temperarure in the coop will be too hot for te eggs therefore it is always better to take them in the cool as soon as possible.

 

[chicochi3]

My eggs are usually clean when they come out of the coop. All I do is rinse them in cold water from the tap. No rubbing. Then I put them in the frig. If an egg is overly poop-covered, I just return it to the chickens.

 

[randys]

I have 10 laying hens, very seldom do I get any poo on an egg. I do not wash but do put in frig.

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

After much research and consideration we chose to wash the eggs because we sell them. Our customers appreciate this service.

I believe I have built up a resistance to any and all germs in my coop so have no personal worry about any "stuff" on my eggs, but my customers haven't built up resistance to coop germs. I don't want the refrigerator can to blow some invisible coop germs off my eggs and onto the food that they eat raw, so we wash our eggs before we refrigerate them. An egg doesn't have to have a hunk of poo on it to be "dirty." We sanitize even clean-looking eggs. But we sell several dozen eggs every day. We keep our eggs in an eggs-only refrigerator so they don't pick up odors or flavors.

I think it is important to handle and wash eggs properly or washing can cause more problems than it solves -- do the research on proper egg washing and look into your local regulations as there is a huge variety in the laws. In order to not damage the cuticle more than necessary, we don't "scrub" an egg that doesn't have visible dirt on it ... Collecting eggs often so they stay as clean as possible and can cool down is an important step. I've read science that indicates embryos start to develop sooner and at lower temperatures than I was originally told -- and our eggs are fertile so we have to consider this possibility. It is also important to consider "Room Temperature" for unrefrigerated eggs is usually supposed to be much cooler than rooms in my house. Eggs drop in quality (grade) fairly quickly if kept above 70.

Unfortunately the dry air blowing around a modern American refrigerator is not that great for eggs either ... as eggs dehydrate they lose quality fast. Ideally eggs should be stored in a cool HUMID place. I would love to build an old fashioned egg cooler, but that wouldn't do much for my customers as I usually sell eggs within a few days of lay and I doubt I could sell the customers on the idea of building themselves a cool, dark, damp burlap rack to store their eggs.

Bloom is great stuff! Sometimes a broody will get her eggs super dirty as she's settling into nest, and a few times a broody has broken an egg and managed to cover all the other eggs in her clutch in egg mess ... and still healthy chicks hatch. I have every confidence the bloom will protect the contents of an egg from exterior contamination.

But this isn't JUST about protecting the inside of the egg from outside germs.