Saving Eggs

Juliet ♦ April 23, 2012 ♦ Leave a Comment

Saving eggs – Hens do not produce many eggs during the colder months.

During my first year raising chickens, I did not know that hens virtually stop laying over the winter.  This means the availability of fresh eggs is almost non-existent.  During the summer and into fall, I have more eggs than I know what to do with.  With this feast or famine situation with egg supply, I recommend taking surplus eggs and prepare them to be frozen.  Frozen, raw, scrambled eggs will let you have eggs available during the winter months, especially for cooking in recipes.    This sure beats buying eggs at the grocery store!

It is best to crack your eggs, one at a time into a separate bowl, if you are using farm fresh eggs so that you can catch “undesireables” before they are added to the rest of the cracked eggs.  All you have to do is beat the eggs very well, and add about 1 teaspoon of salt per about 1 cup of beaten egg.  If you’re using regular ice trays, you will want to lightly spray the ice tray with cooking oil before adding the egg.  If you skip the oiling step, it will be almost impossible to remove the frozen egg from the tray.  If you don’t want to rely on having an aerosol cooking spray available, you can purchase an inexpensive oil mister that will pressure and spray your desired oil.  If you want to avoid using oil, you can obtain silicone ice cube trays which will allow you to pop out your frozen eggs with much more ease.

MESS ALERT: Remember that these silicone trays are flexible, so make sure to place the trays on a flat, hard surface before filling them and moving them into the freezer.  A big mess can be made with unfrozen egg.  A small cookie sheet or cutting board will serve this purpose.  You may want to use a flat surface even with standard trays to avoid extra sloshing when transferring to the freezer.

Equivalencies and Storage: One standard size ice cube of egg equals about one medium size egg and two cubes are equivalent to about one large to extra-large egg.  You can store these frozen egg cubes in sealable plastic bags for about six months.  That’s plenty of time to let your hens get back to laying.  Make sure to date your bags so that you can rotate your supply and stay aware of freshness.