Egg temperature prior to incubation?

[whmeade10]

This is my first post and my first shot at incubating so I hope this isn't to lame a question. I was planning on saving my RIR eggs Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday and placing them in the bator Saturday morning but am worried about the temp outside. As I work all day I can't collect eggs until I get home around 6:00pm. During that time the temp can be anywhere from 40 - 60 deg this time of year. Common sense is telling me the eggs will not be good for incubation. Do I need to wait until the weekend to gather eggs several times in the morning before they get to cold? Most eggs are laid between 6:00am and 9:00am. I would hate to start off on the wrong foot the first time. By the way, do you guys catch yourselves having conversations with your chickens? Or am I nuts

Thanks,
Bill

 

[mopargal1972]

You are nuts!

..... But that's a good thing. I have read that eggs should be stored small end down in and egg carton tilted to one side in a cool (50-60 degrees), humid (70-75%) place. However, I have heard of people hatching eggs that have been in the refrigerator! I have collected eggs after they were sitting out in the nest boxes in 30-40degree weather for a few hours, and they have hatched. Of course, I may have just gotten lucky! Hopefully someone with more experience than me can give you a better idea of how likely they are to hatch. Good Luck!

 

[whmeade10]

Thank you for your reply. I will go ahead and give it a try.

Bill

 

[patandchickens]

They say it's best to store them around 55 F and 80% humidity, which conveniently describes my basement perfectly

But as long as they don't get much below 40 F or so (and see below about that), they will be FINE. Remember what a hen does in the Real World, she lays a clutch of eggs on successive days that she gets up and walks away from and leaves alone til she has enough to start sitting on. They are at whatever temperature the air is at. 40-60 F included

The eggs stay in a sort of "neutral" state, not developing just sitting there, til she starts setting and gets them up to incubation temperature. Yours will do that too

I have read that the embryo is killed below about 40-45F. However, I have a bunch of eggs in my 'bator right now, due to hatch Friday or Saturday, that were laid in a coop with the air temperature between 25-35 F, and most were not collected til probably 4-6+ hours after they were laid and of course they FELT dead-cold. Nearly all of them developed, and the ones that didn't I think the problem was unfertilized pullet eggs rather than a temperature problem. It takes eggs quite a while to cool down from "hen temperature" to air temperature. And even then, your air temperatures are probably totally fine anyhow.

So, go for it

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[whmeade10]

Thanks Pat, I am starting to collect eggs today and go through Friday. I was a little worried about temp so my father-in-law is going to collect eggs at 7:00am, 8:00am, and 9:00am each morning so they won't get to cold. He doesn't mind at all considering he and my mother-in-law gets all the form fresh eggs they can eat. Again, thank you for your response, and I will let the forum know how things turn out.

Bill