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Comment by cmroanirgo | Hacker News Reader

Thanks for this post: I've always wondered why I don't have a problem with eating eggs from my backyard hens, even after a couple of weeks sitting on my benchtop, whereas the supermarkets always have them chilled (I'm in Oz). I never knew about the thin film layer on the outside!

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Honest question: how do you clean your eggs? Chickens are not fastidious about where they poop.

When you have 6-20 hens the issue is a bit different from several hundreds. The nesting box tends to be pretty clean and you put in fresh hay to encourage them to lay the eggs there rather than some hidden part of the yard (a constant risk, and spoiled eggs smells similar to that of a decomposing animal except it seems to continues forever).

They don't tend to poop when laying eggs and usually leave the nest imminently when done, being quite loud and signaling to the rest of the troop. Collecting a newly laid egg becomes a bit of routine, and I get a feeling so is the laying of an egg by the hens.

Working with animals you also do get a bit more used to chicken poop and just deal with it if an egg here and there is not perfectly clean. I tend to wash those before using them in cooking. It is pretty fair trade for getting: "free" eggs, insect management in the garden, weed removal, and naturally enjoyment of having social animals.

As you say, where the chickens lay is always scrupulously clean (--They keep it that way, moreso than us). The boxes are elevated and they go there just to lay (& tend to sleep nearby, but elsewhere). I've never had poo on the eggs: but even if there were, I'd pretty much ignore it.

My parents kept chickens when I was growing up and this is what I remember too, from all the times I was tasked with collecting eggs from the (elevated) boxes.

This. As long as the nest boxes have fresh hay in them and you keep track of any nests (and brooding hens) in the garden, then the eggs rarely need cleaning.

We had one hen who insisted on doing her business in the nest boxes and that obviously ruined the fun. The soup was really nice though. :D

How do you make chickens eat weeds, but not your crops (sorry, I know nothing about farming)?

Its mostly about the size. For rose bushes and berry bushes it is pretty simple. For other things, seeding are kept inside during winter (Swedish climate) so by the time they get planted they are big enough that the chicken leaves them alone. Some plants do need a mesh net like strawberries where the chickens will leave the plants alone but sometimes goes after the fruits. There is also large sized steel meshes for the exceptions where plants are large enough to not be eaten but so small or freshly planted that a chicken that is scratching the soil would ruin the plant.

(The context is our garden around the house, not a professional farm. Can't say anything if this could be used in a larger setting.)

They are not really dirty in a way that requires washing before storing. There sre at worst maybe small feathers sticking to it.

Then you can still wash them right before you use them, if you fear that something could get into the egg when you crack it.

Hens shit out of the same orifice that they lay eggs from. It is called the cloaca. I always imagined that the feculence on my eggs comes not from concerted manure dispersal over them, but from the remnants of past stools.

Now I'm curious. Do you know what a cloaca is and how it is related to eggs?

Are you referring to the passing poo and eggs through the same hole?

"When a hen lays an egg, her uterus turns inside out beyond the cloaca that the egg never touches the nasty stuff."

https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2012/06/chicken-reprod...

I did not know that!

I do...my wife actually has some hens. I don't see how that contradicts my question at all. We end up with eggs that I am not eager to be handling/storing without washing, but apparently the rest of world manages this, so I am curious how.

No contradiction at all. I just thought it would be funny if you were worried about chicken poo and were ignorant about that part of hen anatomy.

Turns out I was the ignorant one, as per benj111's reply below.

Sounds like paranoia to clean them. Never heard of that.

How often and how much exactly is the outer shell touching your food?

Paranoia? Probably.

But we have eggs that have chicken st on them. (Not covered, but a spot here and there is plenty to make me squeamish). I'm not eager to be handling these, nor keeping them around the kitchen, without washing, but apparently the world has figured this out, so I'm honestly curious what they do.

How often do you clean your hands after touching your eggs.

When handling raw meat, I always clean my hands and separate the working surfaces. For eggs, I don't.

I rely on my immunesystem here. I trained it all my life. (I do separate chicken though)

Not the original commenter but at my place we generally don't clean ours... and they are usually not soiled. Making sure we change out the straw in the nesting box regularly helps a lot.

I also crack the egg on a flat surface so the shell doesnt get pushed inwards.

I don't. I simply put the raw egg into a seperate container so I can see if the egg is bad but otherwise, as long as I'm not putting the whole shell into the food, I don't mind (it's not rare that I get eggs form the supermarket with poop and feathers stuck to it)

The eggs we get from our parents' hens we wash before we cook with them and keep them refrigerated along with chicken poo in cardboard egg boxes. Eggs from the store are already washed but we haven't fond any was good as the ones that we get from our parents' hens.

I eat eggs from my parents chickens for my whole live. Some of the eggs have dirt and shit on them, but I don't think I ever cleaned an egg before I opened it. I am still alive and healthy :)

My local supermarket — a Coles — doesn’t refrigerate their eggs. They’re on a steel shelf next to the bread.

I’m slightly curious about how this whole egg washing and storage system works.

Yeah we (Australia) are super inconsistent on this. The same brand eggs, in the same supermarket chain, in neighbouring suburbs, are stored differently. My local Coles they're refrigerated, the suburb over they're not. It makes no sense.

It depends on their source. If they’re washed they need to be refrigerated, and if they’re not they can just hang out at room temp.

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