I've read all of the literature regarding collecting eggs for incubation. For the most part, the recommendation is: Don't wash eggs. Keep them around 55*. Higher humidity is good. Best to store upright, and rotate 2 - 3 x/d. Easiest done by tilting egg cartons. So here's the question: I want to know how many readers will wash an egg before setting in the bator? Yes, the recommendation is not to wash to protect the bloom. But, the hatcheries DO sanitize eggs, and SOME readers do, and get good hatches. IMO, it would be better to sanitize an egg that is not as clean as I'd like to see, than to discard it altogether. So: Any readers sanitized their eggs before hatching? If so, what results have you had? Also, any correlation noted between not so clean eggs, and failure to hatch, or oomphalitis?
I agree! Getting rid of the bloom can cause the embryo to die, or when the chick hatches it could be sick from the bacteria. Now if there's just mud or something in that sorts you can use a dry paper towel to wipe it off. If there is absolutely no alternative, than wash you hand really good before coming in contact with the eggs, and incubator.
I think a dirty incubator poses a greater risk than a dirty egg. That is, unless the egg explodes in the incubator. I have found that my foam incubators start smelling kinda funky if I run more than one set straight. Last year I ran the LG incubator for 3 months straight and every hatch got worse. That's why I built a big box convection incubator with plenty of fresh air and no dead corners. For my current set, I bought 32 refrigerated hatching eggs. I split them up as evenly as I could, bantam, easter egger, and brown, and among the date ranges which were 12 days, 6 days and 5 days old. After they warmed to room temperature, I sanitized and marked about half the eggs. I have 16 eggs that had organic materials wiped/scraped off and were dipped in a warm (110F) solution of 1 TBS bleach in 1 qt water. They were then air dried without wiping and marked. The bloom did not visually appear to be affected. I also have 16 eggs that were just wiped with a dry paper towel and set. I then added 15 eggs from my coop. The 15 from my birds were just plopped in the incubator without any attention at all other than knocking off loose stuff. I am at day 5, at day 10 I will candle all the eggs and see if there is a difference in early development. The eggs from my birds are marked differently so I can evaluate performance of all.
