How long will a hard boiled egg keep in its shell?!
Answers: My son made an easter scene using boiled eggs and expects to keep it in his bedroom forever.
Actually, if eggs are boiled a really long time, they will keep for years! That is how some people (in the Baltic states and Eastern Europe) traditionally prepare them for the intricate painted eggs they make as lovely Easter decorations.
The only problem, is that the fat from the yolk can leach through the shell and cause discolouration of the paint. Which is why they are usually oiled afterwards. They are then kept and the collection added to by the family over the years, with only damaged eggs being discarded. Some of these eggs are considered hierlooms and are very expensive to buy.
You can tell it is a "cooked egg" variety (rather than blown) by them having no hole and "rattle" when gently shaken. This is because the long cooking time shrinks the content into something akin to a marble! Needless to say it is a great skill to achieve this without the shell cracking in the process! It helps to protect the egg collection from the dreaded egg shell mite which God made to gobble up all the discarded egg shells once the chicks had hatched (seriously!).
But I suspect your son will only have boiled for ten minutes or so...? In which case, as long as the shells are not cracked, you may not notice any difference in several weeks. They will begin to smell "strong" and ever more sulferous with time, although being cooked, they will never actually go as rotten as an uncooked egg (which you can smell from the outside, it is so disgusting!).
In a nutshell, I advise you to "let nature take its course". He will not be in any danger and it will be a valuable lesson in "food science" for the whole family! LOL!
Only a few days. It will stink the place out after that!
Or you could pickle them!
Just leave it until it starts to smell. Probably about a week.