Egg washing myth

[Project Blue]

Earlier I posted about Hydrogen peroxide hatches and again had a few more excellent hatches with very filthy eggs. I'm convinced it's a myth washed eggs don't hatch well. I'm getting more aggressive washing under the sink, wiping with HP soaked paper towels and drenching in hydrogen peroxide. Mostly I'm wetting the eggs with HP which softens the muck and depending on the amount of muck lightly wipe off with HP soaked paper towel or even run under warm sink water then HP as a final rinse. I have 5 incubators going steadily. My hatch rate and health of the chicks is way higher than without washing. So far all the chicks are hatching perfect, no curled toes etc. I've been hatching shipped eggs and home grown eggs for years. I did get infertile eggs and one did go bad, however without hydrogen peroxide the rate of partially developed dead chicks, and early stops has been much much higher. I'm getting no dead chicks. My next group is 12 duck eggs. They were gross when I collected them as it had been raining and some where just plopped out in the muckiest of muck. So far all are staying fresh and should hatch in a few days. I consistently add a small squirt of H.P. to the hydration water and start with a sterilized incubator. I still agree it's best to use clean eggs but would highly recommend spot cleaning poop and mud off those with HP. I really believe bacteria in those spots also incubates in the heat and humidity causing early fetal death. In my case I'm incubating the gross eggs I don't want to give to friends and family to eat. The HP doesn't remove stains making the eggs unappetizing but they are hatching. One thing, the poop on brown eggs when I presoak with HP causes a light spot while cleaning. Blue eggs fade to white in the incubator. All the eggs continue to lighten in the incubator. Again, in the past, I did the recommended lightly scrape of any dirt but never wash hatching eggs. I also got good at hatching weak chicks, keeping ICU chicks alive, and straightening curled toes. Cleaning and using HP I have not had any hatching problems, except one chick that was backward in the egg. That chick came out strong. The first couple of hatches could of been just a statistical glitch, but I'm adding more hatches and testing pretty gross eggs and now am totally convinced washing eggs works. I added a few goose eggs to the mix and will see how they do. So far, I've tried chicken and duck with very good results. No more smelly incubators is also a benefit, especially since my laundry room is also my incubation room. I'm getting 100 percent even in staggered incubators, which is tricky to start with.

 

[BlindLemonChicken]

Does HP get egg yolk off? I had a terrible hatch a few years ago when a hen broke an egg in the nest. I cleaned them as best I could with water and only got one chick out of a dozen eggs

 

[Project Blue]

Does HP get egg yolk off? I had a terrible hatch a few years ago when a hen broke an egg in the nest. I cleaned them as best I could with water and only got one chick out of a dozen eggs

I think so. There's been yellowish stuff, I think some kind of mucous from the laying process. I'm not scrubbing but wiping. I'm wiping because the brownish liquid would just re-dry on the egg and I'm not wanting to use too much HP rinsing even though I get it a dollar a bottle at Walmart. After the eggs get thoroughly moistened with HP then I wipe with a HP wet paper towel. Almost everything slides off pretty easy. I noticed when I first put the HP on it bubbles on some eggs in places, like an infected wound does. I imagine those places just fester in the incubator until it works its way into the sterile chicks growing space creating havoc. Egg yolk is a delightful medium for lots of bugaboos to grow in afteral. I'm experimenting but having amazing results. I would venture to say if you had followed up with HP you might of got a better hatch, though I'm not sure if this would work in a hen's nest verses an incubator where I'm reintroducing small amounts of HP intermittently when I add hydration water.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

I think so. There's been yellowish stuff, I think some kind of mucous from the laying process. I'm not scrubbing but wiping. I'm wiping because the brownish liquid would just re-dry on the egg and I'm not wanting to use too much HP rinsing even though I get it a dollar a bottle at Walmart. After the eggs get thoroughly moistened with HP then I wipe with a HP wet paper towel. Almost everything slides off pretty easy. I noticed when I first put the HP on it bubbles on some eggs in places, like an infected wound does. I imagine those places just fester in the incubator until it works its way into the sterile chicks growing space creating havoc. Egg yolk is a delightful medium for lots of bugaboos to grow in afteral. I'm experimenting but having amazing results. I would venture to say if you had followed up with HP you might of got a better hatch, though I'm not sure if this would work in a hen's nest verses an incubator where I'm reintroducing small amounts of HP intermittently when I add hydration water.

Have you written an article on this? If so, would you please post a link, and if not, would you please consider doing so?

 

[BigBlueHen53]

I know there's also been some discussion about using Odo-Ban on hatching eggs with surprisingly good results. Was that you, as well? That should also be made into an article if it isn't already. I'm very much in favor of washing eggs, whether for eating or hatching, so looking forward to more articles on the subject.

 

[Susan Skylark]

Hydrogen peroxide oxidizes organic material, in small doses it is beneficial in removing organic debris and has some antibacterial activity, too long of an exposure causes damage to fabric, shells, and living tissue (like wounds). Decreasing the organic debris on eggs going into the incubator (by whatever means) is an excellent idea: No organic material means bacteria have a hard time surviving until and lowers the environmental contamination at hatch when chicks are most vulnerable. The lightening of the shells is consistent with peroxide use on substances like fabric or hair. I do find it harder to find a causative relationship (correlation is not causation) between peroxide and less chick deformities, increased hatch rates (unless you previously had a horrible rate of bacterial egg infections), etc. cleaner eggs and less neonatal chick deaths from bacterial causes, makes a ton of sense, but peroxide is not a magic bullet. I have tried inducing intra ova infections by washing/scrubbing/soaking eggs with no success, this combined with an eggs innate defense mechanisms make actual bacterial invasion of eggs with intact shells exceedingly rare (I have a rate of 1 egg out of over 300 incubated and that was cracked!). Cleaning eggs gently but thoroughly preincubation is an excellent idea, peroxide use can be part of that protocol, but saying it magically fixes so many other hatching issues is premature without significantly more data and carefully controlled protocols.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Well, when I am ready to hatch I think I will try a cleansing protocol of Dawn dish soap and Clorox bleach. Now before this curls all y'all's toes, let me hasten to add that I will be using a very MINIMAL amount of these products. We don't really want to mess with Mother Nature very much, now, do we? And I will also say that for the most part my eggs come in from the nests pretty clean. So it's not like I will be dunking and scrubbing every single egg within an inch of its life!

 

[Project Blue]

Cleaning eggs gently but thoroughly preincubation is an excellent idea, peroxide use can be part of that protocol, but saying it magically fixes so many other hatching issues is premature without significantly more data and carefully controlled protocols.

Oh, dear. Let me be clear, I'm experimenting and liking the results, and what I'm doing here is sharing the results. The experimenting started with desperation as I lost my flock to a pit bull and was trying to recreate it with every single egg. The only thing I'm convinced about is washing eggs can be a good thing with hydrogen peroxide. Actually, I'd be afraid to use bleach or dish detergent. In the past, even with a good hatch there would be a good chance for a slow hatching weak chick. Now I'm getting all strong chicks. Correlation, causation unrelated assumptions, whatever, but it is useful to speculate as to why. I think my results are valid based on the hatch rates and health of the chicks that HP makes washing possible, not that it should be done, especially with clean eggs. Additionally, adding a little HP during incubation might be preventing now likely porous eggs from going bad. Most cleaners would be detrimental to fetal chick health, but I think HP is mostly benign. Why I think it's important to be able to incubate dirty eggs? If you are trying to breed a specific trait or in my case recover a certain line of chickens, every egg is important if you're collecting from one hen or two hens. I've heard over and over washing eggs is not a good idea because it removes the natural barriers keeping the embryo in a sterile environment necessary for the chick to develop. What I'm saying you can wash eggs with HP and get excellent results, not household cleaners. All my incubators are full and yes statistically it's still a small number, but I think it's enough to look into. There are so many factors incubating process that decide results. However, from one person's point of view that has used the same techniques from years of hatching, (I hatch yearly for decades) to see a major improvement is significant. The other thing is not all my incubators are equal in quality but all are getting good hatches.

 

[Molpet]

I had read years ago about hatcheries sanitizing eggs. Someone on here used HP for npip

 

[A.T. Hagan]

There are a lot of reasons for why some settings of eggs hatch well and others do not and they can be difficult to suss out at times.

For myself I have never put anything but washed eggs in my incubator. I did once have a paltry 60% hatch rate (shipped eggs) but at the same time I've had more than one 100% hatch rate (home produced eggs). I am of the belief that curled toes and leg deformities have more to do with incubation temperature and the nutrition of the hens who laid the eggs, but it is a complex problem.

I have always sanitized the inside of my incubator (a cabinet Dickey) before setting eggs. The eggs themselves were washed with just warm running water then immersed in warm water with one tablespoon of household bleach per gallon for a period of one minute then allowed to air dry. I averaged 80+% hatches. I also candle eggs in process. The first time at a week. Again at two weeks. Last time on day eighteen. Have never had a rotten egg burst in my box. Which is a good thing as the incubator was in the living room so my wife would probably chuck me and the box out the door if one did!

I'm in Florida so summers can be a slog. The further into the hot season the more the hatch rate would sag so by late summer I was done for the season. Brooding chicks in the rainy season is annoying anyway.