Fresh chicken eggs are the easiest high-nutrition food a person can provide for themselves. Unfortunately, they can be very dirty and covered in bird manure. That’s a great way to get sick. It’s advisable to wash all eggs before using and to prevent any visible amounts of manure from getting on the shell. That brings us to tip number one.
Collect eggs before chickens roost. When birds roost, they poop right there. If your birds can perch up on the edge of the nest, they will poop on any eggs left in the nest. Clean. Even if your eggs get left overnight, they won’t get filthy.
Cover nests in Evenings. Blockade hens from getting to your nests in the evening. That prevents roosting filth. When birds perch, they poop. Chickens like to perch for sleep on the edge of things. If your nests are open-top like mine, a heavy board placed on top will work well, as long as it covers the nest entirely. Block, cover, or invert nests in the evening just before roosting time.
Clean nests regularly. All nests will become putrid with time. Clean out and fill with new nesting material before it gets too dirty. Clean nests make for clean, desirable, and safe eggs. If you keep them clean the area where you store them will also be cleaner. A putty knife will scrape off stubborn dried tidbits, and pure apple cider vinegar is an amazing, non-toxic disinfectant. Make sure nests are dry before letting hens use them again.
Keep the pen and coop dry. Even if things are relatively clean, muddy grounds will make for messy eggs. Grime and dirt hold moisture, which accelerates the growth of harmful bacteria. I just used a bale of cheap stray to dry up the ground in our chicken run. Sawdust, wood shavings, and wood pellets all work well.
Biochar; I also like to use biochar in the chicken pen. It absorbs manure and water, but it also inhibits the colonization of pathogenic microorganisms. You can apply it anywhere that would get wet or may collect manure. It does help. Adding ground biochar to poultry feed even lessens pathogenic bacteria in the manure, which means eggs come out cleaner.
Freshly harvested greens like grasses and tree leaves all benefit healthy gut flora. The fiber profile, phytonutrients, antioxidants, and pH alteration of the gut it causes all impact gut health in a very positive way. It makes the manure cleaner and everything else also becomes cleaner.
Jerusalem artichoke is a tuber from a type of sunflower that, through several different actions, causes a drastic shift in gut microbe populations. It is well-regarded as a strong pro-biotic even when used in very small amounts. It will create a cleaner, more healthy gut microbiome which, besides making the entire animal healthier and stronger, causes yet more reduction in harmful manure pathogens like Listeria, E.coli, and Coccidiosis.
Strong sunlight will keep the entire area more clean and sterilized. The ultraviolet rays of our sun are a medical-grade sanitizer. That ultraviolet energy kills microbes without discretion. Use that to your advantage. Get as much sunlight in your coop as you can. A little shade is fine, but the more sun you have hitting surfaces, the more naturally disinfected the area will be. It will also help the surfaces dry up quickly. An added bonus.
Periodic free-ranging will both improve the cleanliness and quality of your eggs. This is actually a trick of mine to rejuvenate old hens that people are giving away because they stopped laying. The change to a lesser-calorie but much more healthful diet and exercise regimen for a few weeks, it works. Roughly 7 out of 10 non-laying hens can begin laying for me after this. It makes healthier birds, which tends to mean more and better eggs.
Limit feeding to two times a day. Most people free-feed their birds. That, almost always, causes hens to get very fat by about 2-3 years old. You can’t really tell by looking because almost all their fat gets deposited inside the body cavity starting at the lower-end and eventually getting up, impacting the diaphragm. Excess fat causes eggbind, heart stress, and Ascites (also known as water belly). It can even cause cancer and oviduct infection, all of which messes with egg production.
You can drastically reduce all that by feeding only what your birds will eat in 15-20 minutes every morning and afternoon. It’s roughly 1/3 cup per bird per day. A mid-day fasting period helps chickens be overall more healthy.