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8:57 am
August 21, 2010
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lifeisgood/ Melinda
| | Louisiana | |
| Mighty Chicken | posts 111 | |
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My chickens are now 6 months old and have started to lay. My problem is they don't lay their eggs before I go to work!! I live in Louisiana where the temperature has hovered between 95-105 for weeks on end lately. Are the eggs still good when I get home at 5? I am assuming they lay around 9 (I decided this because I was home one day from work and kept checking). What if I came home at lunch? Would they still be okay then? I am scared to use the "float" test to check them because I was told not to wash them!!! Obviously, I have never raised chickens before and have no friggin clue what I am doing!!! Any help would be much appreciated!
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12:27 pm
August 21, 2010
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BuckeyeGirl
| | N.E. Ohio | |
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I would say your eggs are fine at the end of the day when you get home, especially since even though it's hot outside, if the eggs are in the shade, protected as most hens will make them, they really don't get as hot as we do moving around out in the sun etc.
We've been having hot weather up north too, maybe not up as high as LA's heat, but up into the high 80s, low 90s and I don't gather my eggs till after noon due to some of my hens being procrastinators, and when I go out around 2-ish, and I reach for the eggs, they are fairly cool to the touch. Eggs really don't spoil as easily as most people think, hen-fresh eggs keep much better than old store bought eggs so really don't be overly nervous as long as you do get them all that day, be it afternoon or even later.
After saying all that, if you have any doubt, go ahead and float them just before you use em if there's any doubt in your mind… and if you feel better washing them, do that too! It's not some kind of rule the chicken people are going to chase you down over I promise.
I don't wash mine either, but I tell anyone who gets them from me to be sure to wash them just before they use them, and I don't refrigerate mine either, but I do keep them in the cool corner of the basement. Never have I had a problem or a complaint.
I'm sure you're doing fine as long as you get them in the day they're laid. 
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If tomatoes are a fruit, then isn’t ketchup technically a
smoothie?
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1:13 pm
August 21, 2010
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Grandmatotwochicks
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I also gather mine in the afternoon, I have lazy hen's, I have also gathered them the next day, I have never had a problem, I also don't wash them, but tell other's to wash. I am so glad we raise our own now with the BIG egg recall! nothing like a farm fresh egg.
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12:29 am
August 22, 2010
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lifeisgood/ Melinda
| | Louisiana | |
| Mighty Chicken | posts 111 | |
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T
hank you so much for your replies! You have put my mind at ease. (Now I feel really stupid for throwing away a dozen or so eggs that I wasn't able to gather until the end of the day). This is all so new to me in so many ways…especially raising anything other than dogs and kids! I do love my chickens so much though! I have ten of them. I never realized how very soft they are and ……well, except for this one hen (a Red Sex Link)…I like them all. That particular hen is satan's spawn and attacks me every time I go into the coop yard. I was afraid when they were chicks she was going to end up being a rooster she has ALWAYS been such a devil, but she's definately a hen…just a mean, ornery one! I keep threatening her with the stock pot! (The other Red Sex Link is sweet and timid).
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10:42 pm
August 22, 2010
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KentuckyFarmGirl
| | Kentucky | |
| Mighty Chicken | posts 282 | 
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I also gather my eggs in teh evening and we've had some ridiculously high temps lately and they have been fine. I have found that all my hens want to go broody on me in this heat…what are they thinking??
I love your "satans spawn" comment. I also have one of those. She's a Rhode Island red hen and she does not peck, she BITES! When I walk in and she's on the nest I know it's gonna hurt when I reach under her for the eggs. She grabs ahold of the skin on the back of my hand with that beak and twists as hard as she can. I have to pull to get loose. She decided to go broody so I put my little make shift cage over her so the other hens couldn't get to her and left her on 14 eggs that should hatch in about a week. I was just happy not to get "bitten" for 21 days but she may flog me every time I get near her chicks! She's MEAN!
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2:36 am
August 23, 2010
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chickensohmyagain
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i read somewhere that hens usually lay between 10a and 2p, and that is what mine do. I do refrigerate at once, but that is because my friends are leary of eating eggs at room temp and I have to get rid of eggs when we get too many. I don't wash them until just before using them, unless they are actually dirty and most are just nice and clean as can be.
We have a hen that wants to brood as well, but we don't want her to in this heat, so we take her eggs and she has plastic eggs and a rock in her nestbox. She wanders around too much to acually hatch any.
You could call the rest of this "How silly can hens be?"
When we let ours out to free range after some died from the heat, they suddenly stopped laying… we thought. It has been about a week, maybe 10 days, that they have run free. We had only 2 or 3 eggs a day from the nest boxes, down from 12 to 18.
So, there are leaves on the carport (don't ask what else is on the carport, please)… right in the middle, and very out of sight, behind the sacks of chicken feed and two bales of straw and some mulch that did not make it to the garden. Want to guess how many eggs were there? They filled up the egg basket!!
So pretty, big and brown, and small and white, so the buff gals and the banties had all shared the nest. SEVENTEEN … and they were all good eggs. We ate some, gave some away. Other funny nesting sites.. right against the coop side, in the tall grass, we found 4 on one day and 2 on another. We have to walk the yard to look for eggs now.
The iris bed is another favorite place, right in the middle where the dead foliage has laid down. Banties like that one, and don't even get up when you walk over and look at them.
We found a few eggs in a large broken flower pot, too. They actually do leave a few in the next boxes, but now are just as likely to lay them in the straw under the nest boxes. Silly girls, silly girls. And sneaky, too.
A friend who is giving up on chickens after losing nearly his whole flock from the heat dropped off a gorgeous dark red buff roo and some hens, I think it was Friday. One hen promptly died right there in the yard. He also left a big cardboard box full of babies. I hope they make it. The babies have discovered they can go through the fence and play in the veg garden, so they are just everywhere. He raised them in an incubator, so they have no mommy to take care of them.
I am not even sure how many fist sized babies there are, but they are solid black, solid white, gold, and white with black dots, all future big chickens, no bantams. We have too many chickens!
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9:03 am
August 23, 2010
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NorthCountryGirl
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Hi! My hens lay their eggs mostly in afternoon. We've been having really hot temps here, up in 90s and the other week even over 100 degrees according to our outdoor thermometer. The eggs are fine even if I can't get to them till days end.
I have a "bad" hen, too! Well, she's not really "bad" till you go to check under her for eggs. Like Kentucky Farm Girl's post, this one bites and she's real nasty when on the nest. I found if I put one hand behind her head and gently hold her head while I slip the other hand under her to check for eggs, I don't get mauled by an irate bird! I mean she hisses and dives right for your hand if you're not fast enough. So, that settled that!
I have 10 full grown hens too. Currently, Broody Hen #1 hatched out 6 chicks which all appear to be female. They are about 12 weeks old and no sign of spurs on their legs. I have Broody Hen#2 sitting on 12 eggs right now and hopefully they will hatch in early September. I read somewhere that the rounded, oval eggs mostly produce females and the pointy eggs mostly produce male. Don't know how "scientific" this method is but I used it with my first batch and they all appear to be female. I also used this with #2s batch and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I will be fortunate enough to get all females this time, too. We shall see!
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1:22 pm
August 23, 2010
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BuckeyeGirl
| | N.E. Ohio | |
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I first said to get the eggs of the day that day, as a precaution, really letting them pile up is not a good practice, but yeah, I don't stress over it too much, but REALLLLLY try for that one day goal. It's just a good standard to aim for IMO.
Also, I know this is getting a little off topic as far as eggs and freshness and heat goes, and as a moderator/admin, I should be enforcing ORDER on us all,  but I'm going to keep following the convo here and comment a little about the topic of sexing chicks. Well, I'm not going to say one way or the other about the shape of the egg thing! Nope! Not touching that one! 
As far as telling pullets from cockerals when they're small, I usually go by the hackle feathers for most breeds, (roosters have pointier 'sharper' hackle feathers, hens have rounder 'softer' looking feathers around their necks and they're called 'cape' feathers rather than 'hackles'). Also cockerals usually get thick really sturdy looking leggs really young. Sometimes the 'saddle' feathers start coming in on cockerals soon enough to tell also, and hens don't get those at all. Here's the link to the picture that shows some of the differences in the plumage…  
it may help depending on the breed. Some breeds develope larger wattles and combs pretty fast too, and that's a stand-by indicator. It's good with the big single comb breeds like leghorns, but doesn't really help much with rose or pea combs! None of them are perfectly reliable really, and sometimes and with some breeds you just can't tell till they CROW!
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If tomatoes are a fruit, then isn’t ketchup technically a
smoothie?
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3:14 pm
August 23, 2010
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KentuckyFarmGirl
| | Kentucky | |
| Mighty Chicken | posts 282 |
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North Country Girl,
I am really excited about this oval versus pointed thing! Can't wait to try it. I always get a lot more roosters than I need!
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