Storing Your Chickens Freshly Laid Eggs

Storing Your Chickens Freshly Laid Eggs

This post is for all of the beginners out there. If you just got your first flock of chickens and you're not quite sure what to do with their freshly laid eggs then have no fear — we're going to tell you exactly how to store them.

Cleaning Your Eggs

Before you store your eggs, or even eat them, you have to clean them. There's a big debate on whether or not you should clean your eggs — you should, however if you aren't worried about a little dirt and you're using the eggs for yourself and your household, then you don't need to bother cleaning them. If you want to lessen the work, make sure your hens lay eggs in fresh straw. You don't need to change the straw everyday, but changing it a few days a week helps keep your eggs clean.

To clean any muck off of your fresh eggs, wipe it off with a dry cleaning pad. If the egg is too mucky, you can run some warm water over the egg and use the cleaning pad to wipe it off. However, try and use the dry cleaning pad as much as you can because running the egg under water will remove its bloom. The bloom is slimy and it comes off with soap and water. Abloom is a natural layer of protection on an egg that keeps bacteria off of the egg.


What's A Bloom?

As we mentioned before, a bloom is a thin layer of film that protects the tiny pores on your egg from any bacteria seeping in. If you're going to store your eggs at room temperature, you shouldn't wash them so you don't destroy the bloom. In addition, the bloom protects chicks as they are incubating under the momma hen.

Storing Your Eggs

Once your eggs are cleaned, you can either leave them out in room temperature or store them in the fridge. However, if you washed your eggs, it's best to keep them in the fridge to keep them safe from bacteria.

Storing Room Temperature Eggs

Freshly laid eggs can be stored in room temperature for about a month before you need to move them to the fridge. It's fine to store your eggs at room temperature, but they will last much longer if you store them in the fridge.

Storing Eggs in the Fridge

When you store your eggs in the fridge, it increases their shelf life. You can store them in a carton or a sealed container. If they're in a sealed container, they can last up to six months. Also, you can always write on the container the date of the eggs so you know how old they are.

Storing Your Eggs Long Term

If your hens are laying eggs quickly and you aren't eating them fast enough, you can always freeze your eggs. In order to freeze your eggs, you need to remove the yolk from the egg white. How do you do this? Well, the easiest way is using a plastic water bottle. You crack your eggs into a bowl, squeeze the empty water bottle over the yolk and your yolk will shoot up into the bottle. However, it's not recommended to freeze your eggs because they never taste the same after they've thawed out.

Hopefully, by now, you're a professional when it comes to storing your eggs, but if you still have questions, feel free to shoot us an email and we can give you some more helpful advice! elle@chickens.com

Check back next week for another fun blog post!