Hidden clutch, confused by candling

[CherryBomb]

My daughter found a hidden clutch of 17 eggs today. My girls only started laying a couple weeks ago and they're locked up at night and sometimes during the day. I looked up candling and tried to make sure they were okay to eat, but I'm still confused on what I'm looking for. All the candling info I found is for people incubating eggs, I just want to know if they're okay to eat! I broke on open and it was fine (I could tell from the germ spot it had been fertilized, but no embryo or anything). Another was cracked so I went ahead and broke it open as well, again, no embryo, but it did have a blood spot. If those two were embryo free, theoretically the rest should be fine, right? My understand is fertilized eggs don't begin to develop until the hen starts to sit regularly, so they all develop at the same rate?

Also, it's been really rainy and muddy here so most of the eggs are dirty. I know that I normally shouldn't wash them to perserve the bloom, but for the dirty ones that needed washed, how long will they keep in the fridge? A few weeks?

TIA!

(xposted to another forum)

[lisser]

How many hens do you have? If its several days worth of eggs, I might pass, because its the heat of summer. If they JUST started laying, I doubt the eggs have been brooded. My first broody hen just hatched her chicks, but she's a year old.

If you REALLY want to attempt to save them, I would wash them, crack them individually into a bowl, and if they look/smell fine put them in a storage container, and refrigerate them for use in the next couple of days, or freeze them for later use. But remember to crack one, dump it, crack the other etc. b/c if ONE is spoiled it will spoil all of them. If one is spoiled, get a new bowl to crack the others into.

[mamadelbosque]

When we've found clutches like that I just fed'm to the dogs over the coure of a few days. Just wasn't worth it to me to break open an egg w/ a half-formed chick... Been there, done that, and it was *GROSS*!

[goddessjulia]

this just happened here, I was wondering what to do too. prolly not even think of eating them b/c of the heat, but I wonder whether they will hatch or should I toss them to the dogs... so if noone is sitting them regularly but it's hot as blazes out, could they be viable?

[Nibsie]

Actually, you can safely eat an egg that has been incubated (either by a chicken butt or electric incubator) for up to 9 days. I always collect my eggs in the evening when I put the girls to bed for the night. Even in the hottest part of the summer being upwards of 100 degrees, the eggs I have eaten were all fresh and tasty. If in doubt as to how long it sat, I'd just boil it and sprinkle it, shell and all, in the compost heap. If you crack the egg and out comes milky yellow stuff, toss it.

[Erinz]

Easier than candelling is to wash them in cool water with a big glug of vinegar, then put them in a bowl of water. Fresh, good eggs will lay on their sides at the bottom of the bowl. One week old good eggs will stick the wider ends up just a bit with the more narrow end still at the bottom. Stale eggs will stand up in the water, and very old eggs will float.

We tend to eat clutches of eggs unless they're realllllly gross or something. You can always make a nice quiche! If they're too far gone I cook them up for the chickens (we don't have dogs).

[Blue Lotus]

First question would be: Do you have any roosters? If not, then you don't have to worry about them being fertilized. Eggs often have blood spots - it has nothing to do with them being fertilized, it is just something that often happens with eggs. I found a wikipedia article a while back about it I believe, that talked about the blood spot, etc.

Second, I have to second Erinz on checking the eggs. We have found eggs of questionable age (sometimes potentially several weeks old) and put them in a bowl of water. If they lay flat they are perfectly good. If they stand on end in the water you can use them for baking (but if you wait a few days be sure to check them again to be sure they are still ok). If they float, they are BAAAAADDDD and should be tossed.

[Tizzy]

I wouldn't eat anything that has been set on.
One of my pullets decided to try the broody thing for *two* days, I didn't think much of it but all 4 eggs had significant "blood spots". We have an abundance of eggs though and I don't feel like we are wasting food because we feed them back to the hens.

[Chicky2]

One thing to add to the float test is that you should never wash (or test) an egg in water that is cooler than the egg. Always use water that is warmer than the egg so that it doesn't force bacteria into the egg. One of my chicken books says this, but I'm not gonna go look it up. I'd have to find it first and we have ALOT of books, lol.