Chickens and their eggs

i think if you are referring to the ones that are fertiel that you plan to incubate, you should wipe them off carefully, maybe with a damp towel, and they should NOT be refigerated, but stored in egg containers with the big side up.

if you are ognna eat them, wash and refgireater them, as the coating isn't necessarrry i would think.

hopefully someone else will come along ot clear things up.

I have eggs only for eating, and I wash them in a very mild warm soapy water solution. I posted over in Farm Life too, but I think the "bloom" does not come into play in our situation as we eat 'em quickly. I have bought free-range eggs with poop stuck all over them and I think that's just slovenly. Ick. :)

ick, i agree, eating eggs should be clean!

I agree. I can't handle the idea of what's on the shell of an egg.

So, Zeppy, does that mean that you wash the eggs and then put in fridge to store them until used ?

Those that have a lot of stuff stuck on them, I just throw away. Can't imagine anyone selling something like that. EEEwwwwwe.

i woud soak them. i hope i don't hae this problem. my nesting boxes have tiny wire bottoms, & a friend told me not to put any bedding in them, just collect eggs everyday & they would be more clean...

Mine almost never have anything on them. If the hens don't roost in or on the edges of the boxes, the eggs should stay clean. On wet days, chicken feet get dirtier, but even so, if they walk through litter and then hop up to the box, there shouldn't be much there. Mine never poop in the box; it's just what tracks in sometimes.

thanks! it will be fall before i get eggs, but i am getting EGG-cited!!!

*snort*

Mine are cleaner now that we have redone the nesting boxes. But still, I can't get past the idea of where the egg has come from, and still have an
irresistable urge to wash them at some point. Since they are pretty clean
now, I've been putting them in fridge as is (away from other food) And then washing them just before I crack them. But I would prefer to wash them 'before' putting them in fridge, but am concerned about the protective coating washing off. I used to do it that way, but once I cracked one and it smelled funny to me, so I stopped. DH thinks I'm obscessed with this, and thinks I just imagined it smelled funny. LOL What's everybody else do ? I may be making way too big a deal out of it, but I got salmonella once when I was a kid.............. not fun.
Also, I used to work in a pathology lab, so I'm probably way too focused on bacteria. lol

TamaraFaye, I also used to wash with soapy water and then dip them in a weak water/bleach solution, rinse, dry, and store. But the shell is porus
and that concerned me too, so I stopped. I've read that soaking them is not good because of porus shell.

I know I sound like a real goober, but I just don't know if I'm doing it right, and if all I'm doing is really all that necessary. People been eatin fresh eggs forever without this much fuss. Just must be me. lol.

I'm sure washing before eating is just fine. I've done it every way and never noticed any difference.

My mom never washed the eggs until she was ready to use them. We had a fridge on the porch she kept eggs in, she of course rotated the stock when I gathered fresh eggs, putting the freshest at the bottom.... boy I remember getting in trouble for "boxing up" the eggs and not rotating! But, anyway, when she needed eggs, she'd bring a carton in, fill a bowl with water and put them all in it. If any floated, she threw them out. The rest she wiped off with a dish rag, dried them and put them back in the carton if it was clean. If it wasn't clean, she'd get another carton out.

*If* I ever have to worry about having more eggs than I can use in a few days time, I'll probably do the same thing. We have a mini fridge I can put in the barn, gather eggs, put them in a carton right there, and stick them in the fridge.

I always lightly rinse them before putting them away, only in water. I think of it more in aesthetic terms than sanitary terms, perhaps because we've never had any problems with our eggs.

So what are the sanitary concerns with egg *shells*? Isn't it true that salmonells is inside the egg anyway if the hen is infected-- the egg develops with salmonella already inside it? Or am I misled? Or is it something else all together?

That's a good question. I'm not sure if the salmonella is inside or outside.
I just assumed that if a hen was infected, it would also come out in the droppings, thus being on outside too. Don't know if that's true or not, but I had that notion for some reason (?????)

That's why I love this forum..........there's enough banter of information back and forth, it will either educate us, or do us in. LOL. You know the saying, "steel sharpens steel".

I think (a loose term) that the salmonella germs are on the shell from passing through the chicken. They can polute to just under the shell. We were told on a public interest segment on TV, not to eat any foods where the the eggs weren't cooked. Like homemade eggnog, etc. If you had a recipe that required raw egg, they were to e dipped in boiling water for about 30 seconds. Don't rely on this as accurate information, as it was a whille ago.

echoes

Okay, I decided to look this up. Both the FDA and the Dept. of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service say that the bacteria can be on the shell or in the yolk. The concern with the bacteria outside the egg was that they can enter the egg through its pores. So I think that once the egg is washed, although the protective coat is removed (which might not be all that protective if that's a route of contamination?), the salmonella are also removed. Commercially, however, the eggs are given a protective oil coating after the initial coating is washed off.

One thing that didn't make sense: they said the yolk is contaminated, but the white has anti-microbial properties, but the bacteria can enter through the pores in the egg to the white. It's still up in the air whether or not the bacteria can be found in the white. (?)

The importance of refrigeration was emphasized as bacteria multiply faster at warmer temperatures. And they said not to eat eggs that were cracked, since the crack provides an opening for shell bacteria to enter. I'm curious how virulent salmonella is: how many bacteria do human need to ingest to get sick? It seems like eggs that have a lot of bacteria in them, multiplying for some time, was the greater concern on these websites, as they emphasized making sure the eggs were fresh.

That said, still only one in tens of thousands of eggs are infected. I read from a not-so-reputable site that organic, free-range type eggs are less likely to have salmonella, but I didn't see any more reliable information to back that up (such as whether salmonalla is even transmitted from chicken to chicken and would be density dependent?). And all that said, salmonella is only a risk in eggs that are not fully cooked anyway.

Hmm, pretty interesting!

Thanks, that's great info. Thanks for going to all the effort to look it up and inform people like me. I really appreciate everyone's help.

Now.................................that creates another question..............???????
If it's eggs that are not fully cooked, what does that mean for those who like their eggs soft fried with the yolk a little runny ? Is it a hazzard to eat soft fried eggs ? (I love em, but often wonder about it) Gee whiz ! Who woulda thought eatin an egg could get so complicated LOL LOL I've been eating eggs that way all my life. So does that mean it gets just enough heat to kill it when cooking, (which I would'nt think), or does it mean I've just been lucky all these years and not gotten hold of a live wire ?

I think I remember them saying that yolks should be cooked hard, but I eat runny yolks too. :) I also read one place that most people don't eat enough eggs in a lifetime to ever run across an infected one. So I'm not too worried. (I'll probably be a lot more careful someday when I'm pregnant, though. The stronger consequences in that case are not worth even the slight risk.)

i have heard of some folks who are extrememly sensitive to salmonella. i will ikely be one of them! but as a youngster, i licked many a spoon and bowl from cake and cookie batter [another thing they say not to do], and i let my kids do it, it is the "chef's reward" LOL

i appreciate all this information. my 75 chicks will be here in 12 days! i gotta learn everything possible now LOL

Some particular groups are more sensitive, do you mean, or just random people? I know pregnant women are at higher risk because of the effect salmonella can have on the fetus, but I'd be curious to find out more about that, too...

Wow, how exciting on your chicks! What fun!

I got very , very sick during my last pregnancy. Spent the last two weeks in the hospital, and lost 9 lbs. in my 9th month.
We went up to Queen Wilhemena State Park in Mena, Ark. the first of my 9th month to take that last little trip before the baby came. The spring water at the lodge tasted so good to me, I drank a lot of it while there.

A few days after returning home, I came down with the worst intestinal symptoms you could imagine. I got so dehydrated, they had to admit me to the hospital and keep me there until the baby was large enough to induce labor. They could'nt treat me until the baby was delivered, as the treatment was bad for baby. It was determined that I had a bacterial infection that is commonly found in water. Hhhmmm.

I say all that, to say this. Yep, you definately want to be careful of anything like that during pregnancy. Dangerous for baby, Miserable for you. I wouldn't take a chance.............not worth the risk.

Hmm. Glad I'm done having babies, then. :)

oh, as i recall, tap water of any kind is not recommended for pregnant or lactating moms, but how many people really know that?

glad you adn baby are OK, Peggie!

Wow, so much to think about! Tap water too? My husband and I are thinking of starting a family in the upcoming years and I'm now storing all these tidbits in my mind for future reference. Thanks for your story, Peggie. It reinforces that all these tidbits are serious pieces of advice and not just a complicated set of restrictions to be followed in vain...

Wish I knew then, what I know now. Sure would have saved me some difficulty.

I have a small backyard flock of 8 misc. laying hens and 1 little banty rooster.The best way to clean eggs as I have found from many sources is to wash the eggs as soon as you bring them in . The water should be at least 20 degrees warmer than the egg ,this seals the pores in the shell, never use cold water.If the eggs are dirty at all, you then make a weak bleach solution with warm water and dip the eggs briefly. Make sure the eggs are dry before you refrigerate them I hope this is helpful.

Thanks jslocum207. that sounds like a good way to kill bacteria on the shell and have them conveniently ready for use. How long will they keep if you do it that way ? I thought of doing it that way, but was worried about washing off the protective coating and reducing their shelf life also,.
This definately sounds like a way I'd like to do it. I would like to have them clean in my fridge, and have them ready to crack and use with no further fuss. Bleach is th' bomb for me. I wash everything (food areas) off with bleach a lot. Do you think it would hurt to dip all of them (in bleach solution) after washing as part of the routine ?

Peggy, I have had eggs in my fridge for a couple months and never had a problem.I'm sure they are still fresher than store bought!! No it wouldn't hurt to dip them all, I just bob them up and down a couple times ,let them dry and your'e done. I have some new pullets and one of the naughty girls likes to partially eat the eggs , sometimes I have a mess in the nesting box. If there are any intact eggs I feel the bleach method is the most sanitizing.(I guess she doesn't bother to bleach them before she eats them-bad girl!!!)

Hey, jslocum, watch out: the others might get ideas and start eating the eggs, too. I hear that putting a few wooden eggs in the box will quickly discourage them. Haven't had any egg eaters yet myself, so I can't testify to it.