Collecting eggs for hatching and deciding which eggs you will set

[farnorth]

This question has probably been asked before but a search and a lot of reading got me no real answer to my question.

My situation is this....

I have two hens who I think are preparing to go broody (pulling chest feathers and sitting off and on in nest box) but neither is consistent yet.

I was planning to save up some eggs for about 3 days and get about 10 for one of them to set on.

I worked today so didn't get to the coop until 1 in the afternoon to collect the eggs. Four of the eggs felt warm so I think one of the hens was sitting on them before I came into the coop.

My question is. If these eggs were sat on for say 3 to 5 hours will they have already begun to develop? and if so is there any point in putting them with the eggs I plan to save for hatching? In other words if interrupted in their development will they still be viable?

I usually try to collect my hatching eggs as soon as they are laid, label them and put them in a carton that I rock back and forth a couple times a day.

 

[CochinBrahmaLover]

The eggs can be warm simply from being freshly laid and sat upon while being laid.

I wouldn't worry too much, and just handle them carefully. If you're too worried, simply eat those eggs and try to be more attentive next time. So long as you don't kill the embryo, however, it should be able to go into a hiatus period and then begin growing again, so long as the growth wasn't much, I'd imagine. If not, then just being sat on to be laid would render all eggs useless after they cooled down

 

[thehackleguy]

I collect eggs once a day, sometimes I skip a day (every other day) and save them for hatching. You should not have any problem with saving them.

 

[Ridgerunner]

There is nothing wrong with those eggs. The embryo actually starts developing while it is in the hen’s body. It’s fertilized when it starts the internal journey through her body and develops for the full time before it is aid, usually about 25 hours. That’s why you see the ring on the bull’s eye, it’s from that initial development. The inside of her body is at incubation temperature.

It never truly stops developing, even after it is laid. If it ever totally stops, it is dead. If it is not at incubation temperature it really slows to almost nothing though.

It’s best to not have them cycle between cool off, warm up, cool off and keep them at a fairly steady temperature, but those eggs are really tough at the start. I’d certainly save those eggs and incubate them.

Your hens may or may not be going broody. I suggest you save your eggs in way that you know which are the oldest so once you reach your goal of ten you can keep adding fresh eggs and take away and use the older eggs. That way, in case one does actually go broody you have fresh eggs ready to give her.

 

[donrae]

The eggs are fine. Just store them appropriately, and continue to make the appropriate sacrifices to the Great Broody for your hens to set

 

[farnorth]

Thanks for the replies, I didn't throw the eggs out I dated and saved them. .

I knew they had been sat on and not just laid because it was afternoon and most of my hens lay in the morning.

I had read an article from the University of Minnessota that claimed if they are incubated by a brooding hen before being collected that development would have started and that that would make them less viable than eggs that were collected immediately after being layed.

I'm pretty sure that the one is going broody. I keep finding her in the nest box and she is also pulling feathers. She isn't committed to the nest though. She's a barred rock and I know they aren't considered a very broody breed.

As of yesterday she is still laying....they don't seem to go full broody until after they stop laying so I am waiting to see.

Yesterday I decided that if she goes full broody I am going to give her chicks instead of eggs.

My Buff Orpington who was acting like she was going broody again (growling at me and sitting in the nest for hours) seems to have decided not to go broody or at least not yet as for 2 days now I have not caught her in the next boxes at all.