First time incubating question

[sawyer]

I'v already asked Heidi (from my area) about this, but the more info the better.

It has regularly been below freezing here in mid Michigan but my girls have been laying eggs and the Roo seems to be doing his thing too.

Most of the time when I collect eggs they are cold, but I have no way of knowing if they have been damaged. They really do taste good.

What I wonder is what temp extremes the eggs can take and still be incubated. Maybe tomorrow I will put a thermometer in the coop just to see what the temps are. I want to start incubating enough to maybe get another five hens out of the bunch so I'll probabaly put 12-15 in the bator.

Today I got a warm egg and marked it with a pencil and set it on a counter near the kitchen sink with the fat end raised just a tad. Can I do the same things with the cold eggs? It will take me a few days to collect the 15 eggs, longer if they have to be warm to the touch. Tomorrow I will start to regulate the incubator (borrowed) and maybe by next week I will have enough eggs.

Any pointers here would help. Is this a critical time for temps? Should I have them in the fridge at 43 deg? I read somewhere it should be 55 deg, and the fridge takes the humidity out of the air too?

Help if you can........... I wanna be a papa again.

Thanks

Sawyer

 

[Wildsky]

I have heard of folk hatching eggs that have been refridgerated!! Not sure how good the hatch rate would be.

I collect my eggs regularly - every couple of hours I'm out looking for eggs, and we just eat ours, I just don't want them to FREEZE.......

 

[bmchickens]

just a thought, our hatch that just finished up hatched 22 of the 26 we put in the bator, and good portion of them were refrigerator stored eggs, for about a week. hope this helps

 

[MandyH]

We are in the south and don't get the negative degree weather, but it has been below freezing most mornings this and last month. I go ahead and collect as often as I can but there are eggs that still sit out in the weather. What I do if it's an egg that I really want to set is mark a ? on it, that is my way of knowing not to get my hopes up. So far all but a few out of a hundred have been good.