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Someone gave me some eggs laid by his backyard chicken about two months ago. I left them in a regular egg container on my kitchen counter for about two months now. The room temperature ranges between 50 F degrees to high eighties. Are they still edible?

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You can test an egg for its freshness by placing an egg in a bowl of water as seen here.

  • If the egg sinks to the bottom and lays on its side, it should be fresh and safe to eat.
  • If the egg sinks to the bottom and stands upright on one end, it should still be fine to eat.
  • If the egg floats to the top, it's not fresh but not necessarily unsafe to eat. In this case you should break open the egg shell and smell if there is an unpleasant odor see here. If there is an unpleasant odor, you shouldn't eat the egg.
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Probably not. Certainly not by the typical standard this site hews to (everything must be treated as though you are feeding an immune-compromised person, infant, etc.) but without refrigeration or a preservative process such as waterglass, 2 months is a very, very, long time for eggs to sit out. I'd fully expect that they smell rather bad without even cracking them, and probably have a very large air space as well from evaporation through the shell.

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    If they haven't been washed, eggs keep better if they're not refrigerated, but once chilled they should stay chilled (we've had a couple of questions here but my mobile signal is too slow to track them down now). Evaporation will only affect the quality not the safety, and only in some recipes.
    – Chris H
    Aug 18, 2016 at 7:15

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