How to Collect and Store Eggs

Stay on top of your egg pile with some of the tips and tricks we’ve learned about collecting and storing eggs.

Though raising chickens is not necessary to embrace simple living and homesteading, but for many, like us at Glover Cottage Grove, raising chickens is a fundamental step in their homesteading journey. There are a few different reasons why you might want chickens. We started raising our flock because we love birds. We also thought not buying eggs might help us save some money. And it has! We have consistently had about five hens laying eggs throughout most of the year. Even with just five laying hens, we consistently have more eggs than we know what to do with. Because we now have so much practice collecting eggs, we decided to talk about some of the things we’ve learned about how to collect and store eggs.

Why Do You Need Tips and Tricks to Collect and Store Eggs?

It’s easy to think that all you have to do is wait for the chickens to lay their eggs. And for the most part, that is true. Hens lay eggs, you collect eggs, repeat. However, chickens are living creatures that don’t always act how we expect them to act. With that being said, there are a few things you can do to make collecting and storing eggs easier on everyone involved.

What You Need to Collect and Store Eggs

Nesting Boxes

Nesting boxes are a critical first step in collecting and storing eggs. They are so critical, in fact, that most manufactured coops come with nesting boxes preinstalled. Chickens are natural nesters and will find cozy little corners to settle into without the boxes. But that opens them up to to the possibility of losing their eggs or their lives to predators or unpredictable weather. Nesting boxes in the coop offer something that is safe and takes less effort to make cozy for laying. Most sources we have found say that you should have one nest for about four to five hens. Right now we have about six nesting boxes ready at a time. Our hens take turns laying in only one or two of the boxes, but the extras give them more the choice. This also allows us to have a little wiggle room as we add more chickens to the flock. But a secure box alone does not a good nest make when it comes to collecting and storing eggs. The nests also need to be comfy, which brings us to our next point.

Bedding

Chickens will just lay their eggs somewhere else if they don’t think the boxes are comfy enough. If you let your chickens free range like we do, collecting and storing eggs can quickly become tricky. There are plenty of artificial bedding pads available online. These are great because you can wash them when they get dirty instead of replacing them entirely like you have to with natural bedding. We, however, like to use natural bedding for our coop for a few reasons. Not only is natural bedding cheap and accessible where we live, but we can also use the dirty bedding in our compost. Typically, we use straw. It’s soft for the girls and it dries quickly after getting wet. Wood chips are a popular option that we avoid because the the sawdust on the chips can cause respiratory issues in the chickens.

Possible Issues When Going to Collect and Store Eggs

Like we mentioned earlier, our hens all tend to use one or two boxes until they lay a full clutch and someone decides to brood. In our experiences this can lead to a few issues if someone gets impatient waiting for the nest to open up. One problem being that multiple hens will sit in the same box at the same time. We should clarify by saying that this is not inherently a problem. Chickens snuggle closely all the time, after all. But if the box is big enough for only one hen, it’s possible for one or both of them to become injured while navigating the small space. This is especially true if you have a bigger hen, like our black copper maran, trying to sit with/on something like the little silkies. Injured chickens need extra care and will likely stop laying eggs while they recover, complicating the collecting and storing of eggs. Overcrowding can also become a problem when the temperature rises. Chickens self-regulate fairly well, but they also run warm. So multiple fluffy bodies stacked on top of each other are going to overheat more quickly.

The overcrowding of nesting boxes can also lead to hens taking matters into their own hands by making a nest in the grass. Again, this isn’t inherently an issue. Chickens have been creating outdoor nests for hundreds of years. But nesting boxes are as much meant to keep hens safe as they are to keep eggs organized in one place. No chicken means no eggs to collect and store.

Storing the Eggs

There are a few different ways to store your eggs depending on how often you plan on eating them. You might be as surprised as we were to learn that eggs can actually be stored at room temperature for a considerable amount of time. Eggs have a natural protective covering called a bloom. The bloom seals the egg so bacteria can’t get inside. This is part of what allows the chicks to survive out in the nest until they hatch. Part of why it is so heavily recommended that you refrigerate your eggs immediately is because almost all store bought eggs come pre-washed. Without the bloom protecting the insides, eggs can spoil within just a few hours at room temperature. Meanwhile, unwashed eggs will stay fresh for about two weeks in the same conditions. They will last for about a month if refrigerated. Just make sure to wash them to before consumption to remove any dirt, debris, or poop.

But what if you have to store eggs for longer than a month? Take the winter, for example. Once the weather cools down, chickens stop laying, instead dedicating their resources to gaining weight and staying warm until the snow melts. For long-term storage, we use a technique called water glassing. To water glass eggs, all you need is a canning jar, water, and pickling lime. You mix the lime into the water and then place the eggs into the mixture and seal the jar so it is air tight. Once in a cool, dark place, water-glassed eggs can stay fresh anywhere from six months up to an entire year. We tend to water glass about two half-gallon jars of eggs to last us through the winter. Most water-glassing recipes we have found recommend using an ounce of pickling lime per quart of water. Here is a quick recipe for water glassing to help in with storing your eggs:

Ingredients

Your desired size of canning jar
Enough water to submerge the eggs completely in said jar
1 oz pickling lime per quart of water

Instructions

Mix pickling lime into water until completely dissolved.
Gently add eggs to the mixture, ensure that every egg is fully submerged and uncracked.
Seal the jar so it is airtight.
Store the eggs somewhere cool and dark.

Notes About Collecting and Storing Eggs

Collect your eggs every day, or at least every other day. This prevents eggs from spoiling or developing before you can bring them inside (They will only develop if you have a rooster actively fertilizing the eggs your hens lay every day.) Collecting eggs regularly will also help prevent broody hens. Once they have a large enough clutch, hens are bombarded by their natural motherly instincts and become broody. They can also become broody in warmer weather without a full clutch. As long as they have safe living conditions, it is natural and okay for hens to brood. Just know that broody hens stop laying eggs (but it might also mean chicks if you let them sit for long enough: pros with cons).

Try this simple trick to test an egg’s freshness if you are not sure if it is still safe to eat. Place the egg in a bowl of water. Fresh eggs will sink to the bottom. Eggs that start to tip upwards but stay at the bottom are still okay but will only have a few days left before they spoil. Eggs that float are past their expiration and need to be tossed.

When water glassing, make sure to wash the eggs before putting them in the solution. This should prevent anything that might spoil the batch from getting in. Also note that if even a single egg is cracked, your entire jar will quickly be ruined.

At the end of the day, it is easier to collect and store eggs than we might make it sound here. Once the chickens pick somewhere safe and clean, they will consistently return there to lay. And trust us, you will know when someone is laying. They’ll cluck out an egg song that gets the rest of the flock so “egg-cited” they have to start singing as well. As long as they have access to food, water, and clean bedding, the girls will take care of the rest. Let us know in the comments if you have any other egg collecting/storing tips in the comments below.