Part 1 Eggs arrive in the service area from the barn as either clean, settable, dirty and unsettable. A clean egg has no visible dirt; A settable egg has dirt less than the size of a dime; A dirty egg has dirt less than a quarter, but more than a dime, and An unsettable egg has more than a quarter sized dirt. We counted the number of microbes (bacteria) on each egg, exactly as they came off the belt. They were not cleaned in any way. We found that even clean eggs had some bacteria on them – but there was no significant difference in the amount of bacteria on clean eggs compared to settable eggs. If you don’t have to wash eggs, don’t. Since there is no difference between these two categories, they should be shipped as is.