How Often to Collect Your Chicken Eggs?
Keeping chickens comes with many responsibilities, including keeping your chicken safe, healthy, and capable of producing eggs to their best ability. The other responsibility that chicken owners have is collecting their chicken eggs. Ideally, you need to collect eggs at least twice or thrice per day, depending on how your hens lay eggs.
What Happens if You Don’t Collect Chicken Eggs?
You might fail to collect your chicken eggs, especially if you are too busy to collect the eggs. Your eggs may become stale if you pick them days after chickens laid the eggs. Collect your eggs at least twice or thrice a day. Preferably, collect your eggs early in the morning and late in the evening.
You should collect eggs more frequently during freezing and warm weather. Collecting your chicken eggs continually will keep the eggs clean during harsh climatic conditions. Furthermore, frequent collection of eggs will reduce the risk of your eggs cracking as other hens step on the laying nests as they prepare to lay their eggs.
Predators will also eat your chicken eggs if you fail to collect them promptly. Some predators like snakes, raccoons, and rats can eat or damage your chicken eggs. Collect your eggs immediately after the hens lay the eggs to protect the chicken eggs from predators.
How Often to Collect Eggs in the Winter?
Winter is a challenging season for egg-laying hens since the cold prevents hens from laying eggs accordingly. Hens don’t lay plenty of eggs in winter. Nonetheless, you should check one or thrice a day whether there is an egg in your chicken coop and collect any egg you find in the coop.
Many chicken keepers assume that their hens aren’t laying eggs in winter while they are laying eggs despite the freeze in winter. Collect your chickens frequently in winter to prevent them from freezing, which ultimately affects their quality.
How Long Can Chicken Eggs Stay in the Coop in Summer?
Various research studies suggest that chicken eggs can stay fresh in summer between two and three weeks. Chicken eggs can survive for this long in summer if you keep the eggs at room temperature.
Summer comes with plenty of heat which can ruin the yolks in your chickens’ eggs, thus affecting the quality of the eggs. You have to keep your eggs cool in summer, lest the high temperatures ruin your eggs. Go through these tips below on how you can keep your eggs cool in summer.
– Provide your chickens with a shade
Heat will not only affect your hens’ laying patterns, but the heat will also affect the quality of eggs that your hens lay. If your hens show any signs of heat stroke and heat stress in summer, you need to keep their eggs in a cool environment.
Some of the signs that your chickens could be suffering from heat stroke and heat stress include loss of appetite, decreased egg production, and discolored or pale wattles and combs.
Provide your egg-laying hens with a shade during summer to ensure the birds have a place they can retreat to during hot days, especially if you have many egg-laying hens in your flock. You can provide your egg-laying hens with a shade by draping a cloth over their coop in summer.
You can also erect a canopy if your egg-laying hens are living outdoors. A shade will help protect your hens’ eggs from the heat that comes with summer.
– Ensure there is plenty of moisture in your chicken coop
Ensuring there is enough moisture in your chicken coop in summer prevents your eggs from going bad due to high temperatures in summer. Ensure there is adequate moisture in your hens’ laying nests.
You can use sprinklers to spread water in your chicken coop while paying attention to the areas where your hens lay their eggs. Eggs will remain in good condition when there is moisture, even if you don’t collect the eggs the same day after laying.
– Dip the eggs in cold freshwater
Dip the eggs in the cold, fresh water in summer before storing the eggs. Coldwater will help freshen the eggs during hot days. You can add some ice to the fresh water to keep the eggs cool. Avoid putting too much ice in the water since excess ice can make the eggs freeze, ultimately ruining their quality.
– Put the eggs in the fridge
Storing your chicken eggs in the fridge or a cooler will help extend their lifetime in summer. Eggs need cold temperatures in summer, and the ice in your fridge will help keep the eggs at stable temperatures.
Nonetheless, avoid opening the refrigerator regularly to prevent destabilizing the temperatures in the refrigerator, hence making the eggs go bad over time.
When to Collect Chicken Eggs?
Collecting chicken eggs is a responsibility that chicken keepers have to handle on an everyday basis. Ideally, you need to collect your chicken eggs regularly, depending on your hens’ laying cycle.
Never allow the eggs to remain in the laying nest three hours after your hens have laid an egg. If you have several hens in your flock, consider collecting the eggs at least once an hour.
How to Collect Chicken Eggs?
Collecting chicken eggs may seem easy for chicken owners. Nonetheless, chicken owners have to adhere to specific procedures to ensure they collect their eggs properly. Check these tips on how you should collect your chicken eggs.
– Understand your chicken’s egg-laying cycle
Know what time your chickens lay eggs before you collect the eggs. If it is in the morning, collect the eggs a few hours in the morning when you know all the chickens have laid their eggs.
Collect the eggs a few hours before your chickens go to roost if they usually lay their eggs in the evening.
– Check where the chickens lay their eggs
Hens don’t lay their eggs anywhere, even if you provide them with a laying nest. They will probably lay their eggs somewhere in the corner of the coop if you are keeping your egg-laying hens indoors.
Outdoor-egg laying hens will lay their eggs somewhere at the corner of your yard. Understand where your chickens lay eggs and then collect the eggs.
– Clean the eggs
Cleaning the eggs is an integral part of collecting eggs. Hens can lay their eggs anywhere they want, even in dirty places. Clean the eggs after collecting them. Clean the eggs with wet clothing and hold each egg gently as you clean it.
Conclusion
You should collect your chicken eggs as regularly as possible. Please don’t wait for the eggs to lay around for a long time since some chickens may step on the hens and break them accidentally. Establish an egg collection routine to help you collect the chicken eggs efficiently and effectively.