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Chicken Eggs

We keep 5 slikie chickens for our family egg needs but we tend to have 5 to 6 dozen at any given time. I would love to hear how other folks keep the eggs straight, what are the older ones and what are the freshest ones?

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Permalink Reply by Torry on March 11, 2013 at 2:42pm

I use an egg skelter, they are widely used pretty much everywhere but in the States, where we insist on refrigerating eggs. It is a coated wire contraption that keeps the oldest egg available first. The natural protein coat on an unwashed egg will keep it fresh for 3+ weeks on the countertop. The room temp. eggs cook more evenly, and are fluffier.

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Permalink Reply by HOMEGROWN.org on March 12, 2013 at 3:17pm

Howdy! We put your question to HOMEGROWN's Facebook friends. Their responses:

Hilltop Homestead I lightly pencil the date on each egg and store in egg cartons. We eat a lot of eggs and only rarely have an overabundance.
Alison Abbott Slide new cartons to the bottom of the stack in the fridge.
Cynthia Grant After cleaning I've seen them stamped with watercolor paints with different stamps. Different stamp for different weeks.
Dave Valentine Mark the date you started the egg carton on the end of it, and stack them in order of date.
Alison Abbott And eat more eggs! That's a lot of backed up eggs from 5 silkies
Diane Coakley Everytime you add eggs to the fridge put the new ones in the back, moving the others forward, just as grocery stores stock
Alicia Sisk-Morris newer eggs are put in a carton (we have 7 chickens so it only takes 2 days to fill carton). Oldest go on the top and youngest on the bottom. we eat off the top carton.
Victoria Ritterbush We use an empty carton each day. If we get more than a dozen we use two. The newest eggs go into the lowest part of the refrigerator, and the oldest are on the top shelf. We just keep moving them up as we add more.
Torry Nergart I use an egg skelter, they are widely used pretty much everywhere but in the States, where we insist on refrigerating eggs. It is a coated wire contraption that keeps the oldest egg available first. The natural protein coat on an unwashed egg will keep it fresh for 3 weeks on the countertop.
Paula Resnik Fleischer I had to look up "egg skelter" .. what a great item!
Darrell Finch Sharpie. M -T -W etc
1thru 31
Mj Wenzel Write on the box too or freeze them with a date on it
Rhonda Baker Griffin All good ideas. I also do the water test. Put eggs in a bowl of water, if it lays on its side it's fresh , if it stands on end it's not as fresh but still perfectly good to eat, if it floats its no good.
Paulina Vincent I spotted one of these on my wall feed last week:
Timeline Photos

This is a cute idea to keep track of the egg count for the week.

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Permalink Reply by Chris on March 13, 2013 at 1:38am

Well, it would seem the best countertop solution would be an Egg Skelter, but where to find this in the Land of the Fridges? After a lot of searching, I finally located two distributors States side:

http://www.mannapro.com/shop/the-egg-skelter/

http://www.omlet.us/shop/kitchen/egg_storage/1130/egg_skelter_cream/

They look every bit like the ones made in Devon, UK, so with that hope, I ordered the creme colored model before replying to this post. ;)

Ps - Writing the lay date of an egg on its shell very lightly using a pencil is good practice, especially if you do not eat eggs every week. But avoid using a permanent marker as the ink can bleed right through the shell and contaminate the egg you may someday eat. Also, the water test does indeed work and I've used it before to judge the freshness of eggs purchased at our local market.

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Permalink Reply by Ellen Peavey on May 16, 2013 at 10:51am

I keep the new eggs in the bottom of the fridge and the old ones at the top, I have 8 hens that are laying and 1 duck. In April of this year we got 6 new red star chicks and 4 Mallard ducks to add to the flock, they should start laying in September or October of this year. I usually get 6 to 8 eggs a day when I get 5 dozen in the fridge I take 3 dozen to the food bank and give them to people who need food. I will do this with 3 rows of vegetables in my garden to. Ellen from Georgia