Hatching Chicken Eggs

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Raising Chickens 101: Collecting, Cleaning, Storing, Hatching Eggs!

How to Collect and Clean Chicken Eggs

By The Editors
July 31, 2020

“Love my fresh eggs and so do my customers!” Thanks to Jenna, Almanac Facebook fan, for
sharing this beautiful collection!

Jenna Plucinski
When should you collect my chickens eggs? How do you collect eggs from a chicken coop?
What happens if you don’t collect chicken eggs? We answer all these questions and more in
our article on how to collect, clean, store, and hatch chicken eggs.

Once you’ve eaten farm-fresh eggs, it’s hard to go back to grocery store eggs. Fresh farm eggs,
free-range or not, are delicious, with bright yolks and firm whites. Grocery store eggs are
often already a month old before they even get to the shelves.

When to Collect Eggs

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You’ll want to collect eggs every morning; hens cackling loudly are a sign or clue that
they’re laying. I usually have another look in the evening as well. Some hens lay in the
morning and others in the evening.

How Often do Chickens Lay Eggs?

Hens lay about one egg per day when they’re laying. You’ll collect more eggs during
extremely warm or cold weather. Collecting eggs frequently keeps the eggs from breaking due
to hen traffic. Always discard eggs with cracks which allow bacteria to enter the egg.

Also, be sure the shells are strong. Give your hens ground oyster shell or a similar calcium
supplement, available at farm suppliers, for strong eggshells.

Why Are My Chickens Eating Eggs?!

Oddly enough, chickens like to eat eggs as much as we do. Most egg-eaters learn on broken
eggs and then begin to break eggs themselves. Chickens are opportunists and will pick at
whatever looks edible. If you clean up broken eggs immediately and throw out any “eggy”
straw or shavings, you can prevent egg-eating. A chicken that learns this habit can’t be cured,
and others may follow her lead. You don’t want the chickens eating your eggs—you want
them yourself!

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You can tell what color eggs a hen will lay by the color of her ear. Yes, her ear. Birds don’t
have external ears like humans do, so look for a small circle or oval of skin on the side of the
head, next to the ear hole. If it’s white, your hen will lay white eggs; if it’s red, she’ll lay brown
ones. There’s no difference in flavor or nutrition, but white eggs show the dyes more brightly
at Easter! (Especially natural dyes, as pictured here.)

Cleaning and Storing Eggs

Avoid washing farm-fresh eggs if you can; instead, wipe with a dry, rough cloth. Eggshells
have a “bloom,” a natural coating that protects the egg from bacteria. If you wash the eggs, it
removes this protective layer and you need to put in the refrigerator. Otherwise, the eggs can
be stored on the counter for up to a month or stored in the refrigerator; it’s personal
preference. I think the eggs taste better within two weeks, but they’re fine to eat within a
month of laying.

If the eggs have a little manure on them, remove. To keep your eggs clean, keep their straw
fresh and pick out any large pieces of muck best you can, but it’s inevitable that the eggs may
have a little muck on them. Just wipe with a damp cloth for small spots.

A really dirty egg can be submerged and scrubbed with a vegetable brush. Always use warm
water (wearmer than the egg); cold water will make the egg shrink inside the shell and will
draw in bacteria.

If you wash the eggs, be gentle and quick. Let eggs air-dry thoroughly before putting them
away. (I like to sort them by color, darkest to lightest, but that’s just me!)

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I put my eggs in dated egg cartons, and store them in the fridge on a shelf—not the door,
where they will get jostled with every opening/closing. For partial cartons, I mark each egg in
pencil with the day it was collected. Refrigerate between 32- and 40-degrees Fahrenheit.
Fresh eggs are good for a month in the refrigerator.

A cooking tip: To make deviled eggs, use week-old or older eggs, not this morning’s. The
shells of really fresh eggs stick and don’t peel cleanly.

A common question is whether a chicken could hatch from an egg purchased at the grocery
store. This is typically not possible. For a chicken to develop from an egg, it must be
fertilized. Most eggs sold commercially in the grocery store are from poultry farms and have
not been fertilized. Now that that question is answered, let’s get to the business of babies.

If you want chicks, you’ll need a rooster!

As a rule of thumb, 10 to 12 hens per rooster is a good ratio. While you could build an
incubator and supervise the development of the eggs, it’s easiest to let the hens take care
of hatching.

A hen that is getting ready to nest becomes “broody.” This means that she wants to hatch her
eggs. She’ll sit “tight” on the nest and resist having her eggs collected, whereas a non-broody
hen will let you reach under her to collect eggs. A broody hen may even peck or screech at
anyone coming near. There are ways to discourage broodiness, but why would you? The hen
does all the work of hatching and raising—and you get free chicks!

If you do decide to get an incubator, a forced-air model with an automatic egg-turner is

recommended, as eggs will need to be turned four to five times a day. The temperature inside
the incubator should be between 99° and 102°F, while the humidity should remain between

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55 and 60%. Chicken eggs will hatch after approximately 21 days. Check with your local
cooperative extension service for more information.

Farm chickens can live 4 to 7 years and lay eggs for most of that time. Every year they go “off-
lay” (stop laying eggs) for several months. This happens over the winter, when there’s too
little daylight to trigger egg-laying. They’ll begin again in the spring.

See what to do when chickens stop laying eggs.

More of Raising Chickens 101

This article is part of our Raising Chickens 101 series. See more of our beginner’s guide to
raising chickens:

Raising Chickens: How to Get Started

Choosing the Right Chicken Breeds
How to Build a Chicken Coop
Raising Baby Chicks
When Chickens Stop Laying Eggs

About This Blog

Welcome to our Raising Chickens 101 Guide, a series of chapters especially
geared to helping beginners! We cover how to get started raising chickens,
chicken breeds, building coops, baby chick care, protecting chickens from
predators, collecting eggs, and more. The complete guide is authored by
two poultry experts, Elizabeth Creith, and more recently, by Chris Lesley, a
fourth-generation chicken keeper. Chris is currently teaching people all
around the world how to care for healthy chickens. See more expert backyard chicken advice
by Chris on her site, Chickens & More.

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