Found out why my silkie eggs quit UPDATE

[SilkieTime]

Your smart.

 

[newchickenfamily]

Yes, excellent detective work! I'm too squeamish to open the bad eggs.

 

[lemurchaser]

Quote:
Bleach should be okay. Pseudomonas forms biofilms, which are basically films made by the bacteria to protect them from things that will kill it. And while most cleaners CAN kill the bacteria, they don't in real life, because they don't get through the biofilm. The is the one bacteria that is sometimes found living in the surgical scrub chemicals in hospitals. I would alternate bleach and sunshine if possible. And make sure that everything gets cleaned. It's a common bacteria that can cause a lot of problems in all sorts of ways or can be absolutely harmless. Remember humans get this too, so wash hands after doing all this.

 

[AngieChick]

Did you use any liquid when cleaning the eggs? Honestly, I don't wash eggs before incubation. If you wash the eggs you are taking off the bloom, which is its natural protective coating. While the egg may look cleaner, there will still be bacteria/etc. on it that will then be able to access the embryo easier because there is no longer any protection. You can wipe it gently with a dry cloth to get the worst off, but I wouldn't apply any liquid at all.

There has been a lot of discussion on past posts about whether to wash or not to wash eggs, you may want to search it.

But yes, now that you know that it's present in your incubator due to the last batch, you will want to bleach it down before you use it again. It's good practice in general to do a bleach wash before and after each incubation.

 

[evonne]

you said you purchased these eggs.. was it local?? or shipped?? i would say probly don't want to get eggs from that person again...

good luck with your next batch.......

 

[JCoogle]

I never wash eggs. If there is alot of mud or so forth on them I try ro just pick off what ever possile. I alos do not set eggs if they have blood on them. I feal sorry for the chickens when that happens.

 

[Sissy]

I too never wash eggs when I set.
I would be careful with setting your next batch
makeing sure the bater is cleaned up.
So sorry, what a disappointment .

 

[ethingtonart]

Bleach should be okay. Pseudomonas forms biofilms, which are basically films made by the bacteria to protect them from things that will kill it. And while most cleaners CAN kill the bacteria, they don't in real life, because they don't get through the biofilm. The is the one bacteria that is sometimes found living in the surgical scrub chemicals in hospitals. I would alternate bleach and sunshine if possible. And make sure that everything gets cleaned. It's a common bacteria that can cause a lot of problems in all sorts of ways or can be absolutely harmless. Remember humans get this too, so wash hands after doing all this.

I read about the bio films online and I was surprised when they said that they could actually culture the bacteria in soap! So, I'm going to try to be extra cautious while cleaning the incubator!! My plan is to wash it out with antibacterial soap and then I was wondering if I could actually run it for a day or so with some hot bleach water in it. My hope would be that the bleach water would find it's way into any nook or cranny that the bacteria did. Do you think that would work? And then follow up by sun drying (nothing like some good old fashioned solar radiation!)

Your smart. bow

Thanks, but I can't take all the credit, sonew123 was doing the detective work with me. We actually came up with the same answer at the same time.

you said you purchased these eggs.. was it local?? or shipped?? i would say probly don't want to get eggs from that person again...

They were shipped, and from a good seller, I haven't contacted them though. I'm not one for confrontations, and they don't do refunds anyway.

I didn't wash the eggs because I was trying to keep the bloom intact. I spot cleaned two of them with warm bleach water on a towel, the rest I lightly sanded the problem spots. In my inventory of the eggs before they went in to the incubator 11 of 19 were marked as dirty or very dirty. Some of the "clean" ones even had some amount of poo on them, but not enough that I was concerned. You can see though why I hesitated throwing out the dirty eggs, there were just so many. I would have been putting 8 out of the 23 eggs I received in the incubator! The first two that died were the ones marked very dirty on my inventory, so lesson learned I suppose.​

 

[flgardengirl]

When I was in college and taking microbiology, we had an assignment to go and take cultures on 4 different things. Some people did bar soap, some did antibacterial liquid hand soap etc. The bar soaps had the highest bacterial counts but some of the antibacterial soaps also had some bacteria in it as well.

I read that if you do wash eggs you should use lukewarm water, and not to ever use cold water because the cold water causes the pores in the eggshell to contract thus drawing bacteria into the egg.

 

[SunshineSilkies]

After each hatch, I use Oxine to clean everything...kills bacteria