Clean vs. dirty eggs

Yesterday, I felt like a bad farmer.  I had to throw out around two dozen eggs.  J and I... and the boys... we all thought the other family members were collecting eggs- but no one was collecting any eggs.  So the eggs sat there... and got dirty, and gross, and eating them would be unsafe.

My parents came yesterday to help watch Pickle while J picked up teaching another class.  I wanted to send some eggs home with them and I could only come up with nine acceptable eggs.  And I found eggs everywhere... on the dryer, in various egg cartons in the mudroom, in random straw piles in the barn and in the nesting boxes in the coop. 

We have been chicken farmer slackers.  Once my parents left, JJ helped me get a bale of straw to the coop and we laid down new straw inside and built up the nesting boxes with fresh, clean straw.  What a lovely place to lay an egg!

Today, I was so excited to go into a clean coop and gather very clean eggs.  I got half a dozen eggs that looked practically pristine. 

The key to collecting clean, healthy eggs is daily collection and keeping the nesting boxes clean.  Farmer J will also say having healthy, well hydrated hens is important too.   This isn't chicken "rocket science", I know.  I think I'll put myself on egg duty for the rest of the "high season" (i.e., high laying season of summer into early fall)!  I'll let the boys stick with the dirty job of mucking out the coop!