<edit> Poultrysicle thread - will they hatch?

[walkswithdog]

Found an unattended stash of frozen eggs and decided to SEE if any of them would go... day 1

The weather, to say the least, has been NASTY.

And Cynthia - Tinker has decided to go broody NOW. Mid Freeze. Darn bird.

Decided to retitle it... 18 eggs

 

[gvntofly05]

Good Luck

 

[walkswithdog]

I've gotten near frozens to go so I figured I'd take the bet. Nothing wasted but a little time and I have four birds from the first try...

 

[Akane]

Frozen is very different from nearly frozen. Very cold eggs will hatch. Truly frozen eggs have had the cells damaged by the freezing process. They will reach a point they can't develop because that part of the egg is damaged. Any that do anything quit about day 7-9.

 

[kathyinmo]

I am gonna watch this progression! It makes me think about the eggs shipped in the winter months ... how will they do? Hmmmm ....

 

[walkswithdog]

Well, then I suppose that's the way we find out if they were frozen or only near frozen. What I do know is night time temps have been in the teens and daytime it's been snowing. And they weren't in warmed areas of the coops. I tossed out those that had expanded and cracked. Those were obviously frozen. Both coops have an open side on the lee side.

Those are some tough chickens but they've done well like that so I'm not messing with it. There are heated areas in the bantam coop for the young chickens and the seramas but mostly they just hang out with the other flock and free range til they get cold.

And my little barred rock hen, Tinker, from Cyn is trying to hatch six in this weather but she won't listen to me when I tell her she's nuts.

 

[TimG]

Quote:
You mean this didn't get you to thinking about it?

 

[Ban seabhag]

Just a question, but if they aren't cracked isn't it likely they didn't actually freeze through? Wouldn't expansion crack them if they had?

 

[Akane]

The air sac allows for some expansion. Just like when you hard boil an egg and the air bubbles come out as it heats. The contents are expanding and the air is being pushed out. You can have a slightly frozen egg without it expanding enough to crack. I've broken a few open that only some of the whites were frozen. If you try to hatch them though they die before they make it to hatch day. I set a lot of eggs over last winter. Some days it was well into the negatives and we had a week of about -30F without windchill. I did hatch a few that were from hens which tended to lay later in the day so closer to when I collected. The rest either did nothing or didn't make it more than a day or 2 past the first week.

 

[speckledhen]

Cher, refresh my memory. Who is Tinker's mother? Was it Lexie? Broody? Wow, that's cool. Well, that's COLD, considering our weather. None of my BR girls has ever gone broody, but I think Amanda's mother was the broody sort, so maybe Amanda is her mama?