How To Store Your Chickens’ Freshly Laid Eggs - The Happy Chicken Coop (2023)

There are not too many greater pleasures in life than strolling down to the bottom of your garden, reaching into your nest box, and pulling out a freshly laid egg. If you time it just right, the egg will still be warm!

You joyfully walk back inside and take the egg into your kitchen to prepare it for breakfast.

But what do you do if you intend to keep the egg and eat it later? Where should you store it, and how long can you store it for?

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Before we start on what to do with your freshly laid eggs, I want to briefly touch on making sure your girls and their eggs are healthy as well as keeping your girls protected so they can continue laying eggs for a long time.

To protect your chickens you should fortify your coop all around the perimeter and making sure they can’t break in through the front with a quality automatic chicken coop door.

We recommend using a supplemental treat for nutrients that promotes shinier feathers, stronger eggshells, and an increase in egg production.

This treat is called black soldier fly larvae. We have previously written about it here. Check them out on Amazon now:

Cleaning Freshly Laid Eggs

Before you eat or store your eggs, you need to do the first thing once you’ve got them inside to clean them.

Welcome to one of the most hotly contested debates about keeping chickens! The debate centers around you should clean the egg or not…

If you aren’t too worried about a little bit of dirt and are using the eggs yourself, then (as long as the eggs aren’t filthy), you don’t need to worry about cleaning them up.

However, if you give the eggs to a friend or family member (trust us, as soon as they try your fresh eggs, they won’t stop asking for them!), then it doesn’t look that great giving them dirty eggs.

The best thing you can do to keep your eggs clean is to make sure your hens lie in freshly laid straw.

You don’t need to replace the straw every day; make sure you pick out any large pieces of muck each day once you’ve collected your eggs.

Unfortunately, no matter how clean you keep their nesting box, you will always get the occasionally mucky egg.

To clean the muck off, try to wipe it off with a dry cleaning pad. If the egg is particularly mucky and this isn’t possible, run the eggs under warm water and use the cleaning pad to scrub the muck off.

Note: Try to use a dry cleaning pad wherever possible because when you run water over an egg, you are removing its bloom. Abloom (cuticle) is the egg’s natural external protection layer that protects it from bacteria.

What Is The Egg Bloom?

If you intend to store your eggs at room temperature, you should not wash them to destroy the bloom.

The egg’s bloom is a thin layer of film on the outside of the egg. It seals off the tiny pores on an eggshell and prevents bacteria from entering.

This bloom protects developing chicks from bacteria as they incubate under momma hen or your favorite incubator.

When washing your eggs, you can often feel the bloom come off of an egg. It is usually slimy and will wash away with warm soap and water. Once it is gone, your egg is open to bacteria.

How to Store Chicken Eggs

Once your eggs are clean, they can be stored. You have two choices here- either leave the eggs out at room temperature or keep the eggs in your fridge.

There is one exception to this rule- if you need to clean your eggs with water, then it’s safer to store them in the fridge straight away- this is because you’ve removed the egg’s bloom (more on this later).

Storing Fresh Eggs At Room Temperature

Freshly laid eggs can be left out at room temperature for at least a month before your need to start thinking about moving them into the fridge. We like to make sure we eat ours in under two weeks (because they tend to taste better), but so long as the egg is eaten within one month of it being laid, you will be fine.

As a side note- eggs purchased in a supermarket are normally at least a month old before they even get to the shelves!

You can store the eggs in any dish- we keep ours in a basket filled with straw. However, if you want to keep them ‘fresher,’ make sure you pop them into an egg carton once you get them inside.

Storing eggs at room temperature is fine; however, they will last much longer in the fridge…

Storing Fresh Eggs in the Fridge

If you want easy access to your eggs and extend their shelf life, the best of both worlds is keeping your eggs in the fridge.

When you put your eggs in the fridge, you can either place them inside an egg carton or a sealed container. Eggs kept inside a sealed container (such as a lunchbox) will easily keep up to six months and still taste fresh. The only thing you may notice is that the egg white is slightly runny.

If you are concerned about this sort of thing, you can use a pencil and write the date chickens laid the eggs on the shell- this helps you keep track; if you only have a handful of chickens, this won’t be necessary.

Want to freeze your eggs to make them last longer? Read the ‘How to Store Eggs Long Term’ section below.

How to Store Eggs Long Term

If your girls are laying at full speed and you can’t keep up eating the eggs (lucky you!), then you can freeze their eggs. This isn’t as simple as picking the eggs up and placing them in the freezer, unfortunately.

To freeze your eggs, you need to separate the yolk from the egg white. The easiest way to do this is with a plastic bottle.

Crack the eggs into a bowl, squeeze the empty plastic bottle whilst holding it over the yolk.

If you do this right, the yolk should shoot up into the bottle (You will need to practice a few times, but once you get the knack of it, you’re set).

In our experience, though, we wouldn’t recommend freezing eggs… they don’t taste the same once they’ve defrosted.

Covering Your Eggs in a Magic Coating

If you’ve spent any amount of time searching for advice about how to store your fresh eggs, no doubt you’ve come across coating your eggs in a homemade solution.

We’ve seen and tried lots of these coatings, such as mineral oil, lime juice, Vaseline, and sawdust.

In our experience, none of these ‘magic’ remedy coatings improves the shelf life of the eggs, and it’s more effort than it’s worth. In fact, when we used sawdust, it actually reduced the shelf life of the egg!

How Long Do Chicken Eggs Last?

If you haven’t cleaned your eggs and their bloom is intact, they can be left out at room temperature for at least a month, and they will still be fine to eat.

If you chose to place your eggs in the fridge (either because you cleaned them and removed their bloom, or just because you want to keep them cool), then they can last up to six months in the fridge- we wouldn’t leave them any longer.

Though we bet you won’t keep freshly laid eggs for six months- firstly, they are just too tasty!

Secondly, if your friends and family find out you are storing eggs, they will be sure to take them off your hands.

Proudly Displaying Your Eggs

The great divide between storing fresh eggs in the fridge or room temperature appears to span across the Atlantic Ocean!

It’s common for people in the UK to store their eggs at room temperature, whereas most people keep their eggs in the US fridge. The downside of storing your eggs in the fridge is that you can’t show them off.

As previously mentioned, we keep ours in a plain basket filled with straw; however, some people really like to go the extra mile with their egg arrangements.

If you’re one of these people, consider getting an egg Skelter (stand) to store your eggs on.

Not only do eggs look great on a Skelter, but it helps you keep track of which eggs are the freshest.

Eggs are stored in a first-in, first-out system, so it makes sure you are eating the oldest eggs first.

How to Check If an Egg Is Bad

Occasionally, you’ll want to check if your eggs have gone bad or not. For instance, you may find your chickens find ‘alternative’ places to lay their eggs- I guess your nesting box isn’t up to their standards!

If you do find a pile of eggs in a ‘secret’ nest, then there is a straightforward trick to find out if they have gone bad or not.

Get the eggs and place them into a bowl of water. If the eggs float, then it’s bad luck because they are bad. Any eggs which drop to the bottom of the bowl are good and safe to eat.

If you don’t have access to a bowl of water or are looking for a quicker alternative, then you can listen to the egg.

Pick the egg up and place it next to your ear, then give it a gentle shake. If you can hear the egg slopping around inside the shell, then it’s bad, and you need to discard it.

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Common Questions About How to Store Your Chickens’ Freshly Laid Eggs

The following information should help clear up any lingering questions you have about storing your chickens’ freshly laid eggs.

Do Freshly Laid Eggs Need to Be Refrigerated?

While you do not need to refrigerate freshly laid eggs, they will last longer. Just keep in mind that you should not wash them until you are ready to use them if you don’t refrigerate your eggs.

How Long After a Chicken Lays an Egg Does It Need to Be Refrigerated?

You can leave a freshly laid chicken egg out at room temperature for a month before refrigerating it.

After that, you should probably put it in the fridge.

Why Do Fresh Chicken Eggs Not Need to Be Refrigerated?

When eggs are freshly laid, they have blooms or cuticles, which are protective coatings.

These coatings keep the eggs fresh as long as you don’t wash them.

How Long Are Farm Fresh Eggs Good for on the Counter?

They will be good for at least two weeks or up to a month. If you put them in the fridge, they can last up to three months.

Why Shouldn’t You Wash Fresh Eggs?

When you wash fresh eggs, you remove the bloom, which is a protective covering. This effectively invites bacteria to enter the egg. It’s even worse if you wash them using cool water, which creates a vacuum that encourages the bacteria to get inside.

Why Is It Easier to Peel Older Eggs?

When raw eggs age, their air sac expands. This creates a void that separates the membranes of the eggshell. It is not only why older eggs are easier to peel but also why they tend to float. That air sac also improves buoyancy.

Have any other great ways to store eggs? Let us know in the comments below.

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