Saving fresh eggs for winter

Each week during the summer our hens lay more eggs than we can eat, so it makes sense to try to keep some for winter when they are no longer laying. Hens need 11-14 hours of daylight a day to lay. So now, for example, they go to bed at around 7:30 in the evening and get up at about 7:45 each morning. They put themselves to bed when it gets dark, even though I then go to close the door and shut them in their house. As a result they have about 12 hours daylight which is why only one of them is still laying and less frequently than in the summer. She will soon stop altogether until about next Jan/Feb.

My mum always saved eggs in what was known as water glass. There was an enamel bucket in the larder and fresh, dated eggs were placed with the pointy end down into the bucket. During the winter we used them just as you would use fresh eggs, but you can’t boil them otherwise they’ll taste of lime.

Water glass is hydrated lime and water. In France it’s called chaux hydraulique and is added to cement. You can buy it for a few euros from builders’ merchants. Unfortunately it comes in 40kg sacks which is enough for about 50 years! The recipe is 30gms of lime to 1 litre of water. The lime in the water fills the pores of the eggs and gives them a ‘glass’ coating. This is why you mustn’t use shop-bought eggs as they may have had the natural protective coating washed off them. The eggs must be freshly laid and unwashed. You make 2/3 of a bucket of the mix, wearing vinyl gloves to protect your hands, then add the eggs as they are laid. Make sure to mark the date on the shell with a pencil. The lime settles to the bottom, but that’s fine. It won’t harm the eggs.

With three hens we have had 555 eggs so far this year. There are just two of us to eat the eggs so we could easily save a third of the eggs which would see us through several weeks of the winter. The eggs saved like this will last at least 8 months which is way longer than we need them to.