I knew that one of my hens was hiding in this cooler spot in our yard. Today I went out to check on her and she was sitting on 19 eggs! I brought them in and did the freshness test by putting them in water. Three are "fresh" and 6 are "one week old". I am assuming these will be fine to eat since they were pretty well insulated (better than in their nest box). I will throw out those older than 2 weeks.
What do you think, keep the good ones? I think they will be fine. What has your experience been?
Kelly
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Same thing happen at my place. Hidden nest was in middle of huge prickly pear. Interesting retrieving the eggs. Did the freshness test. Used all that were sinking to bottom and those that would wobble on the narrow part of egg. But used them right away. They were fine. The ones that were at all questionable, I hard boiled then took my pastry cutter to the whole bunch and fed them back to the chickens. Got this idea from book by Harvey Ussery, "The Small Scale Poultry Flock". This was about a month ago. Chickens loved it. Ussery also notes that he always uses the shells of eggs (all crushed and unrecognizable) to feed back to his chicks. I run them through a blender with other stuff for the chickens. Hope this helps.