Introduction
After Collecting eggs from your backyard or homestead, the next step is storing them. This is if you do not consume them immediately. Storing chicken eggs in the proper manner can help lengthen the duration of the eggs. It prevents pathogens that can make you sick from getting into the eggs.
Once your lovely chickens start laying eggs, you will notice all manner of eggs. Clean eggs, small eggs, large eggs, coloured eggs. Some will be clean and others not so clean.
Some will be filthy dirty mostly from chicken droppings, soil, and litter. This is true especially if the litter gets wet or the eggs are laid on chicken droppings. If your chickens lay on the yard, chances are that the eggs might be affected by the elements – sun, heat and moisture.
Eggs can also get dirty during the laying process where you will notice some blood stains on the egg shell.
The Outer Structure on an Egg
An egg has different parts. These are the yolk, vitelline membrane, chalazae, albumen, air cells, inner membrane, outer membrane, egg shell and the bloom. When it comes to storage of eggs purposes, the eggs shells and the bloom are the most important parts.
Egg Shell
The egg shell is the outer hard covering of the eggs that hold the inner contents in place. Without it the egg would not hold. It has coarse texture, due to the calcium carbonate crystals that are arranged in a way that they leave upto 17,000 tiny pores.
These pores make the egg shell a semipermeable membrane that is able to let air and moisture particles through. Tiny microscopic bacteria and dust can pass through the pores.
Yikes!
Not to worry, because the bloom comes to the rescue.
Egg Bloom
The egg bloom, also known as the cuticle, is a thin outer coating on the eggs that seals the pores on the eggshell , preventing moisture, air, dust and bacteria from getting into the egg. It also keeps the moisture from the egg from getting out.
The bloom is invisible to the nacked eye and is applied to the eggs, just before it is laid.
I have witnessed one of my chickens lay an egg. I decided that the bloom was wet and dried up in seconds.
It is the egg bloom that determines how long the egg will last. Well that and time. Time seems to affect everything.
