[Alec]

Hello. Today I have  found where one of my bantams has been secretly laying.To my amazement i found a clutch of eleven eggs(behind garden shed)  .I am assuming she has laid one a day approx.But what is the chance of some of these eggs being old and inedible?How do i tell if edible when i crack them please?Many Thanks  -Alec(PS no cockerel for 3 weeks,She has not been brooding them)

[raeburg]

get a bowl of water and do the float test.  if they lie on the bottom they are fresh, if they tilt up they are Ok ish, if they float, bin 'em

[8doubles]

And crack each egg into an empty bowl just in case.

[woodburner]

If she hasn't been sitting on them, they may well be edible. I've had loads of eggs over a month old when the weather was bad and they were too muddy to sell.
I have however had a bad egg under a month old. It had been buried in the straw, and so had been very warm for at least one night, it was also poopy rather than just muddy, and had a porous shell.

I always break eggs into a bowl before I use them (I don't like boiled eggs!) and then sniff. But before you do that, you can tell roughly how old an egg is by 'floating' it. The older it is the more it will have dried out and the higher it will float, but it doesn't mean they are bad, just old.
From investigating unhatched incubated eggs, I would avoid eating any that the yolk has mixed with the white, or that are excessively runny, or look greyish, even if they don't smell.
hth