Storing: temperature, humidity, shelf life, and the egg room

This lesson is part of Table eggs: from nest to customer specialisation. It opens to every registered student, from free registration. Levels 1 to 5 and the tracks remain readable by everyone.

A clean, whole egg coming off the grading table has all its quality. What it will keep until the customer depends on a single place: the room where it waits. Under sheet metal without a ceiling, at 33 °C in the afternoon, four days are enough to turn a Tuesday egg into an egg the customer judges old on Saturday. In a ventilated room, in the shade, at 24 °C, the same egg still has ten days ahead of it. This lesson gives the shelf life of the egg in days according to temperature, the humidity needed, the first in first out rule, and the plan of an egg room for a house of 2,000 layers.

• ✓Explain what storage slows down (water, carbon dioxide, microbes) and what the three enemies of the stored egg are
• ✓Give the egg's shelf life in days according to temperature and calculate the 'equivalent' age of a batch
• ✓Set the humidity, ventilation and smells of the room, and apply first in first out with dates
• ✓Size and fit out an egg room for 2,000 layers, with or without cold

1. Storing means slowing three losses
2. Temperature: shelf life in days
3. Humidity, air and smells
4. First in, first out: the rule that stops old eggs from existing
5. The egg room for 2,000 layers: sizing and fitting out
6. Going further

• •Storing means slowing the loss of water, the loss of carbon dioxide and the microbes; the three enemies: heat, air too dry or too humid, and temperature changes (condensation).
• •Shelf life: 4 to 5 weeks at 4-7 °C; 7 to 14 days at 22-26 °C; 4 to 7 days at 28-32 °C; 2 to 3 days above 32 °C. One day at 30 °C ≈ one week in the cold: age counts in degree-days.
• •Humidity 70 to 80%; two high screened openings; no fan on the eggs; no smell; never a tray on the floor.
• •First in, first out: date on every tray, one side to store and one side to take, maximum age displayed, stock counted every evening; the useful reading is the age of the oldest tray.
• •Room for 2,000 hens: 5 days of production = 300 trays, about 7 m of shelving in 3 m by 2.5 m, ceiling under the sheet metal, north or east side; cold only if constant until the customer.