Hi, we ordered some duck hatching eggs from different farms and were very surprised about how dirty some of them are. My best guess is, that the first farm collected them in a coop with clean shavings and the other farm gathered them from outside. Dirt, poop, pieces of straw and the local fauna still sticking to most of the eggs. Do I have to be overly concerned about eggs starting to rot in the incubator? Should I try to wipe down the dirty ones carefully with a damp cloth? What would you do? Any experiences? Recommendations? Thanks in advance!
I would wipe down the ones with feces on them with a damp cloth, yes. Maybe just dust off ones with only dirt or straw. It's typically best not to actually wash hatching eggs since you can remove a very important protective layer on the shells. That said, it's definitely not good to allow any feces or really dirty eggs into an incubator. So it's ok to do a little spot cleaning in this case.