Just wanted to add one last note here as things seem to be winding down. Congrats to all for the successful hatches, and thanks for letting me tag along on my first hatch ever. Something interesting about egg washing you might want to know:
I agonized a bit about "to wash or not to wash" because I had eggs from 4 different sources, some were immaculate, and some quite poopy. So I washed the poopy ones in warm water and then dipped them in something called Domestos which they have here in Hungary, and is basically a chlorine based cleaning solution.
Of the 10 I washed, one was clear, and one pipped but didn't finish, probably because humidity was too high the first week. The remaining 8 hatched beautifully. I had one each of each of the other unwashed eggs BCM and Australorp also pip but die before finishing. I washed one of the araucana eggs too, but they all hatched.
So for me, the washing made no difference at all in the hatch, and I even had the washed eggs touching the unwashed at times, had them moved all over the incubator at different times since I was hand turning, and rotating them a bit so they'd each spend the same amount of time near the heat source. It was WAY better than having poopy eggs in with the clean ones.
Folks were so adamant about NOT washing, but the brown leghorn eggs that I washed, developed and hatched as beautifully as the unwashed.
Just thought it might help if you're ever in a similar situation with some clean and some dirty - you don't have to wash/ sterilize them all!
