Washing eggs fresh from the coop or no?

Have you heard about the conflict about whether washing eggs straight from the coop is necessary or not?

I believe most farmers bring their eggs in and put them in a container on the counter without washing them and use them from there.

Eggs in a basket by the kitchen sink
This is a basket of eggs straight from the coop.

Generally, eggs that come directly from the coop don’t need to be washed. You can see that in the picture above. Those eggs came directly from our coop.

Sometimes chickens lay their eggs on the floor and those eggs might get some chicken poop on them. I’ll wash those and put them in the refrigerator. I don’t want chicken poop on the counter. But the clean ones can set on my counter while I use them for weeks and in the cooler weather sometimes months.

In most states it’s required you wash your eggs if you sell from the farm. And all commercial eggs are required to be washed before they go to the grocery store.

Did you know the United States is one of the the only country’s with this requirement? Most of the world doesn’t require eggs to be washed for commercial or private use.

Here’s a link to an article we ran across from the website Backyard Poultry that gives you the down and dirty on this exact subject (no pun intended).

You may be surprised at what you find out.

Read it through and let us know, in the comments below, what you think. Should washing farm fresh eggs be a mandate or not? Would you wash your eggs if you had backyard chickens?

2 Replies to “Washing eggs fresh from the coop or no?”

  1. The article from the link you provided was eye-opening with knowledge that I was totally unaware of. Now you’ve created a dilemma for me though, as I only want eggs unwashed from now on. To think, we’ve all been washing off the protective membrane off the chickens eggs all these years, making them actually be exposed to the bacteria’s that could cause harm. Thank you as always for sharing your knowledge.

    1. I’m glad you learned something from the article. Too many folks don’t know these things. I’m happy to pass on as much information as I can.

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