Should you refrigerate your eggs?

It all started with eggs…

It all started when a friend had hens he wanted to give us. At this time we’d been discussing what to do with the land we had and although it wasn’t obvious where it would lead us, when offered a dozen free hens who are already laying eggs, what else do you say but “Sure! We will take them!”

And here we are 12 years later with well over 125 gals in the flock.

One thing I have learned from having such a large number of hens is…

They need their own space!! Over the years we’ve allowed the gals to free-range in the fields near the house. Oh boy!

You wanna talk about a mess - they tend to migrate on the back porch, the front porch, the summer kitchen porch, in the garage, on my picnic table, in the garden and on the kids play set. Hens don’t wander far from their food, water and protection so it’s time for a move! We are working on a mobile coop that will allow them to free-range away from the house, in the pasture and woods and still have the comforts of their coop in tow. We will be able to move them to different parts of the pasture as well which they will enjoy exploring!

One question we get most often asked is about eggs and refrigeration.

“Do I need to bring a cooler if I am just picking up eggs today?”, “How quickly should I get them in the fridge?”, “Can I leave them on the counter?”

We have become accustom to the idea of putting everything in the fridge to keep it lasting longer and to prevent contamination. When you go to the grocery store where are the eggs? In a cooler section, right?

But do you know why?

Did you know in the UK, eggs are on a stable shelf without refrigeration in the baking aisle? Other countries in Asia and around the world happily keep their eggs on the counter while here in the US, we hide them away in the fridge.

Washing. Washing is the biggest reason commercial eggs (and even many small farms) are refrigerated.

The USDA requires farms that own 3,000 or more laying hens to wash all their eggs before selling them. Some small farms choose to follow this practice as well.

The idea behind this… the more chickens you have, the more likely Salmonella can exist. This likely hood has to do with the cramped living arrangements of commercially raised eggs - cages packed full of hens that are stacked on one another floor to ceiling (where do you think their poop goes - I surely wouldn’t want to be on the bottom row?). This is no way for these lovely birds who provide us food should live - but that’s a discussion topic for another day.

So, the eggs are washed in a non-fragrant soap (no Bath and Body Works scented eggs allowed), then rinsed with a chemical/sanitation-water mix to remove any bacteria from the washing cycle.

Here’s the kicker… washing the egg removes the ‘bloom’ that Our Creator devised to protect the egg from contamination. It already has it’s own protection layer - isn’t that amazing!

An egg shell is naturally porous and this ‘bloom’ is a coating the hen naturally applies to the egg when laid. The ‘bloom’ prevents bacteria from entering inside the egg (hence why the chemical/sanitation step in commercial egg production is critical).

It is actually illegal to sell WASHED eggs in the UK!

Eggs in Europe must be UN-washed and not cleaned at all! According to an interview Nadia Arumugam of Forbes had with Mark Williams, Chief Executive, British Egg Industry Council “In Europe, the understanding is that this mandate actually encourages good husbandry on farms. It’s in the farmers’ best interests then to produce the cleanest eggs possible, as no one is going to buy their eggs if they’re dirty,”

So back to the question about needing refrigeration or not when buying our eggs. Well, it depends…

The eggs we sell are NOT washed, at all… we believe in leaving things in nature as they were intended.

We have nesting boxes that once laid, the egg gently rolls away from then hen into a protective area util collected. Eggs are collected daily - this helps ensure no added dirt or grime on the eggs. If any eggs appear to be dirty, we discard them for the pigs to snack on or use them as our own eggs to eat.

Now, this is where the ‘it depends’ comes into play.

As long as the UN-washed eggs that were collected are not placed in a fridge they don’t need to be refrigerated. They can actually stay on your counter for 2 weeks (then placed in the fridge for up to 3 months). However once they have been in a cooler environment and then returned to a warmer one, condensation forms on the egg. This condensation may remove the bloom and allow for bacteria to enter the egg. All commercial as well as all WASHED eggs MUST be refrigerated.

The most important thing to remember is this…

washing eggs does remove contaminates but it jeopardizes the natural protective layer already in place to keep contaminates out. We recommend buying UN-washed eggs and giving them a wash just before you use them (unless boiling them - the boiling water will sanitize the egg).

And once refrigerated, keep your eggs refrigerated.

Until we see you on the Farm again… Peace and Love,

Gina