choosing egg for setting?

[Dixiedoodle]

How do you chose eggs for setting/incubation? Do you set every egg, no matter the shape, color, size?? Or do you chose the prefect color, size, shape for your breed? Do you find that the long eggs are more rooster/hen or it makes no difference? Being new to chickens, I know I will want to have chicks IF on of my girls become broody.. Thank you for any suggestions, ideas, experiences you have to share... Dixie

 

[houndit]

It depends on how serious you are. I would recommend trying to select the nicest eggs. You can just set everything if you want to.
Matt John wrote a very good article on that for Backyard poultry magazine. You might see if you can find it.

 

[BirdBrain]

Choose the cleanest eggs possible then candle them to see if any are very porous. Leave out the porous ones unless they are valuable eggs. Candle also to look for any cracks. Don't set a cracked egg. Don't wash your eggs or refridgerate them. Although some have done both with success. Shape gives no indication of gender. Select for egg color if that is what you are wanting-- like the setting only the darkest eggs in Marans. But really you can set anything you want.

 

[stormylady]

This is my first time incubating my own girls eggs, and I just set alot of different ones, except of course the very small , cracked, or otherwise damaged. Im on day 18 going into 19 and all that are left after the last candling are doing great, but I just wanted to see what I would get with the crosses, next time though I plan on doing specific breeding like my cuckoo marans and orps. and some intentional cross breeding.