I have had chickens for about 3 years. In all that time I simply stored the eggs on my kitchen unit in old style wicker baskets. I put some hay in the bottom so the eggs were on something soft and sometimes a stray feather ended up in there too. For three years this has worked well. I even got to sell some eggs last year. I never put them in the fridge even in the hight of the summer sun. They were never bad ever!!!!! DH used them for cooking and baking so we seemed to get through them despite having 10 hens on the go. We always gave some away to family and friends so they didn't stay very long in the kitchen. I always marked the dates on them in Red marker pen so we used the oldest eggs first. This was very successfull up until I went away in October.
- Now everything is going wrong!!!!!!!!!
My eggs used to last 4/5 weeks on the unit top and still be fine for cooking. Now they last barely 2 weeks sometimes less. When I came home from holiday there was deffinately a bad smell in the kitchen so I started sorting through eggs. My daughter was looking after the place so I thought maybe she had marked the eggs up with the wrong dates???? (She tells me she was careful with them.) Anyhow I ended up dumping a dozen eggs because 6 showed up as off doing a float test. Then I smelled them and 4 others in that basket smelled off even though it didn't show in the float test. I decided to open them and sure enough they were BLACK!!!!!!!! So I dumped them as well. Then I looked in my new month egg basket. We came back on the 12th of October so those eggs were less than 2 weeks old. Sure enough I got a bad smell and found another BLACK egg!!!!! I parted these eggs up and put all the ones laid up to the 12th in a seperate basket from the new ones laid after that. I continued to find eggs randomly going off. I ended up dumping over a dozen more eggs.
This morning Dh and I went to do some baking. I had made bacon and egg baps for breakfast with eggs from my basket. They are 10 days old. They were fine and tasted lovely. But when I took some out for DH to use to bake with I got that smell from them and I just knew??? So I took the 4 eggs out of the ones I had parted up ( before the 20th and after the 20th of this month.) I try to keep them seperarted out into 5 day/10 day segments. There were only 4 left laid before the 20th So naturally I was keen to use these older eggs up for baking. I took them outside and craked them into a bowl. 2 out of the 4 eggs that were left were BLACK!!!!!!!!! Of course I threw them all. Now I have about 8 eggs left over from the 20th of this month- throu to todays. I took todays and yesterdays two eggs out for DH to use on the cakes - Assuming they will be ok. However the 6 eggs that are left I think are a bit smelling - can't figure which one yet but I think one is off. Though when I put them in water they all sank showing they are intheory ok??? But then so did many of the BLACK ones I found and threw last month. So in a despirate attempt to end this random egg yuking! I have stripped out my egg baskets compleatly and rinsed them out with disinfectant.(Not so good for old wicker baskets!) I am not sure what will happen to the other 6 eggs. I am thinking I will just open them and bin them. Though the girls are off the lay at the moment and DH needs eggs for Christmas baking so I am in a fix as I can't afford to lose recently laid eggs all the time.
Can someone help me in this???? What is happening. It is winter here so the temps are low. As I said even in the height of summer I never ever had off eggs and they were lasting 4/5 weeks in the unit top in the basket???? Now I am scared to leave an egg past 7 days without worrying. Has anyone else had this going on. I am thinking whatever made the first batch of eggs bad is spreading like a bacteria?????????
Any Ideas how to get this sorted and go back to being confident about "cracking" infront of others without worrying about a bad smell and black gooo!!!!!!!!
Oesdog
- Now everything is going wrong!!!!!!!!!
My eggs used to last 4/5 weeks on the unit top and still be fine for cooking. Now they last barely 2 weeks sometimes less. When I came home from holiday there was deffinately a bad smell in the kitchen so I started sorting through eggs. My daughter was looking after the place so I thought maybe she had marked the eggs up with the wrong dates???? (She tells me she was careful with them.) Anyhow I ended up dumping a dozen eggs because 6 showed up as off doing a float test. Then I smelled them and 4 others in that basket smelled off even though it didn't show in the float test. I decided to open them and sure enough they were BLACK!!!!!!!! So I dumped them as well. Then I looked in my new month egg basket. We came back on the 12th of October so those eggs were less than 2 weeks old. Sure enough I got a bad smell and found another BLACK egg!!!!! I parted these eggs up and put all the ones laid up to the 12th in a seperate basket from the new ones laid after that. I continued to find eggs randomly going off. I ended up dumping over a dozen more eggs.
This morning Dh and I went to do some baking. I had made bacon and egg baps for breakfast with eggs from my basket. They are 10 days old. They were fine and tasted lovely. But when I took some out for DH to use to bake with I got that smell from them and I just knew??? So I took the 4 eggs out of the ones I had parted up ( before the 20th and after the 20th of this month.) I try to keep them seperarted out into 5 day/10 day segments. There were only 4 left laid before the 20th So naturally I was keen to use these older eggs up for baking. I took them outside and craked them into a bowl. 2 out of the 4 eggs that were left were BLACK!!!!!!!!! Of course I threw them all. Now I have about 8 eggs left over from the 20th of this month- throu to todays. I took todays and yesterdays two eggs out for DH to use on the cakes - Assuming they will be ok. However the 6 eggs that are left I think are a bit smelling - can't figure which one yet but I think one is off. Though when I put them in water they all sank showing they are intheory ok??? But then so did many of the BLACK ones I found and threw last month. So in a despirate attempt to end this random egg yuking! I have stripped out my egg baskets compleatly and rinsed them out with disinfectant.(Not so good for old wicker baskets!) I am not sure what will happen to the other 6 eggs. I am thinking I will just open them and bin them. Though the girls are off the lay at the moment and DH needs eggs for Christmas baking so I am in a fix as I can't afford to lose recently laid eggs all the time.
Can someone help me in this???? What is happening. It is winter here so the temps are low. As I said even in the height of summer I never ever had off eggs and they were lasting 4/5 weeks in the unit top in the basket???? Now I am scared to leave an egg past 7 days without worrying. Has anyone else had this going on. I am thinking whatever made the first batch of eggs bad is spreading like a bacteria?????????
Any Ideas how to get this sorted and go back to being confident about "cracking" infront of others without worrying about a bad smell and black gooo!!!!!!!!
Oesdog
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