Hatching eggs from the fridge...

[Feafur]

Okay. PLEASE tell me that we didn't "kill" our eggs. I have 6 Ameraucana eggs that my husband read somewhere that you needed to put them in the fridge until you were ready to incubate them. We got our incubator ready and my hen laid one last egg, so we added that one and now I was reading that you will kill your eggs if you put them in the fridge. DANG IT. Please tell me it isn't true and that I will have more than one chick!

 

[Conchis]

According to this post, it looks like you can..but there is some disagreement.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/695167/refrigerated-eggs-for-hatching

 

[Feafur]

Ohhhh...thanks so much! That helps alleviate some of my worries. I guess we will just have to wait and see what happens. I will post and let you know if we have any successes!

 

[loves2hatch]

I don't think it will kill them. A couple of years ago, a neighbor gave me 2 dozen eggs to eat. While eating the first dozen I noticed that quite a few of them were fertilized. Sooo after a few days I decided to see if they would hatch I started up my incubator and walla 21 days later I had chicks. I had 7 hatch out of 12 . These eggs were probably washed, then refridgerated for I don't know how long when I got them and I refridgerated them. Not all were stored with the big end up either. I told the guy after they hatched what I had done and he was very surprised since he said they hadn't had a rooster in their pen for two weeks prior to giving me the eggs. I think you will probably get a better hatch rate if they are not refridgerated but I'm sure it didn't kill them all. Also there is a thread here on BYC about people hatching eggs from Trader Joe's. They are all refridgerated eggs from a grocery store!
Good Luck and try not to stress to much over it.

Also this is when I first saw a turken, never saw one of those before, and thought his feathers/fuzz had stuck to the shell and was pulled off. LOL The rest were americanas that layed the blue/green and brown eggs. The picture looks like white eggs but they were a light blueish green.

 

[Sphinx]

I've hatched several refrigerated eggs and had fairly decent success.

I don't think it's the ideal, but neither are shipped eggs, and people hatch those all the time.

 

[Feafur]

Ohhhh....thanks so much you guys! I feel much better now!

 

[Texasmja]

I've hatched refrigerated eggs with no problem.