Hen abandoned eggs-

[dancingbear]

Quote:
That is incorrect. While eggs do have pores, water does not readily penetrate the shell.

I've seen people write that the chick will start to kick because it thinks it's drowning, but that's incorrect, as well. It moves because it's about to hatch, and you just re-positioned the egg, which will almost always stimulate a hatching chick to move. In addition to that fact, the air cell is at the top, where the chicks head will be, and that end will be above water, if the air cell is properly developed.

Try this experiment yourself, and you'll see: Take a fresh egg. Place it in a bowl of clean water. Let it sit there a little while. Take it out. Dry it off. Crack it open, taking care not to disturb the air cell at the big end. Examine the air cell. Is it filled with water, or is it still filled with air? Unless you have really bad quality shells, or it was cracked before submerging in the water, the air cell will not have any water in it at all.

You can also take half an egg shell, and float it in a cup of water, like a little boat. If the shell were very water permeable, it would quickly fill with water, like a leaky boat. But it won't, it will just float there all day, and the inside of the shell will dry out.

Water just does not soak through an egg shell that easily, and certainly not in the few minutes it would take to see if an egg is still viable.

If water did soak into a shell that easily, how would eggs get washed for sale without ruining them? Commercially produced eggs are washed before being packaged for sale. Commercial hatcheries wash/or sanitize eggs before they set them. They either fumigate them, or wash and dip in a sanitizing solution. If the liquids penetrated the shell, and into the egg, they wouldn't have a high enough hatch rate to stay in business.

 

[Sunny Side Up]

Quote:
I haven't tried this trick, but I imagine it would be all right to put the egg in for just a few moments, just long enough to see if there is a living moving chick inside. Eggs do have pores, but it's not like a sieve. That's why the albumen doesn't leak out. Also, by using lukewarm water it does something for the direction of the osmosis, the pressure inside the egg is greater than the outside, or something. Sorry, a biologist could explain it better. For those of you who have done this, how long does it take to see if the egg will move?

Sunny_Side_Up- you shouldn't just bury an egg if it has a live chick in it. I find that quite cruel because it suffocates the chick basically if it's still alive.

Also, maybe the reason why you could never get your broody hens to accept the chicks was because maybe you tried to do it during the day?

Sorry, I don't mean to sound cruel, just practical. There's a wide range of attitudes towards chickens here, from pure livestock to pure pets, and all places inbetween. Personally, although I care a lot about and for my chickens, I don't have time/energy/resources to coddle abandoned eggs to see if they hatch. Unless I were raising rare heritage breeds or California condors, I couldn't justify it. Instead, I'll trust Mother Nature & Mama hen.

Sometimes chicks don't hatch on time on their own because there is some genetic weakness. Sometimes it's just bad luck. IF a person is willing, there's always a chance the eggs will hatch a bit later. There's a chance the chick will be fine. If they don't hatch, it's probably NOT a good idea to try to help them pip. If they cannot do even that much on their own, they probably don't have the strength for a healthy life.

I applaud anyone's effort to give it a try, really I do. But I also wanted to give the flip side. That I don't think it's wrong to just let the eggs grow cold and bury them. The chick might already be dead even before that. Sometimes I've cracked abandoned eggs open to find beautiful fully-developed but dead chicks who for whatever reason never hatched. Sometimes it's filled with smelly goo. Either way it's not a pleasant sight, so I usually just bury them whole long after they've gone cold.

And I wanted to say that if you get those abandoned eggs to hatch, there IS a chance the Mama hen won't take them back. Yes, I've tried with my hens, of course by dark of night the way you're supposed to. The hens would tuck the new chicks under them for the night, but by morning would push them away and peck them every time they tried to come near. The sad cheepings of these rejected chicks was heartbreaking, I had to remove them from the pen. Then I'd be stuck with the chore of keeping a separate pen of orphaned chicks, or if there were only one, having to go buy 1 or 2 more chicks from the feed store to keep it company.

It's not that difficult to raise newborn baby chicks, it's just the addition to the chicken chores, the additional cage, food & water dishes to fill, the vulnerable chicks to protect & tend, the poop to clean, etc. You know. If you've got a small flock, or many willing hands to help with the chicken chores it's not a big deal. But these days I need to keep my operation as streamlined as possible, and so I wouldn't take on the extra chore of adopting abandoned eggs.

DomiHentrix, I wish you & your flock all the very best, whatever you decide to do. Please keep us posted as to your results, I pray for a happy outcome.​

 

[dancingbear]

I don't bury unhatched eggs. Once I'm sure there's no chance of hatching, I put them in a plastic bag in the freezer until garbage day.

I agree with Sunnyside, many of us just don't have the extra time to devote to orphaned chicks, especially if they turn out to be "special needs" chicks.

I have a small farm, my DH is a truck driver and so most of the time I'm on my own, I'm over 50, and no spring chicken myself. I have chickens, guineas, a poult, (more turkeys soon, with any luck) pigs, dogs and cats to tend, a garden, produce to process (lots of canning) when the garden turns out well, plus the regular household things to attend. This includes animal emergencies, fence and pen repairs, butchering chickens as needed, and many other things. And, a lot of people are busier than I am.

Nursing along chicks that aren't strong enough to hatch normally, just isn't practical for some of us. For a long time, I tried to save them all, and spent a lot of time and energy on chicks that, more often than not, died after a few days, or had to be culled, which was heartbreaking after trying to save them. I finally just had to stop doing that. The strong ones hatch and live. Nature's pretty good at working things out. We get in trouble when we think we know better.

Sorry for the long OT comments.
Dom, please let us know how it works out.

 

[zowieyellowflame]

Quote:
Just 1 minute! I would only do this with eggs on the way to the composter. I would never do it just for fun....

 

[77horses]

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Really? Then why have I heard that if a hatching egg is dirty while developing, you shouldn't wash it with water?

Thanks!

 

[Sunny Side Up]

I'm not sure, maybe because washing would take longer than a minute? Or because there would be more of a chance of forcing germs in if it were wiped/scrubbed too hard? I don't know, but I think I've heard that same advice. So when there are dirty eggs I find under a hen, I try to just gently wipe it off with a dry paper towel if the dirt is wet, or scrape it off with the edge of a plastic spoon if it's dry.

And now that I know about the egg-float test for abandoned eggs, I will give it a try. Like Zowie, I wouldn't do it unless it was already on its way to the garden. I certainly wouldn't bury an egg I knew contained a live, peeping pecking chick. But since I don't have digging dogs or a problem with other digging animals, I like to bury the eggs deep in the garden or under a bush. That way at least it's fertilizer to help a plant grow, and in a way, it lives.

 

[DomiHentrix]

Quote:
Really? Then why have I heard that if a hatching egg is dirty while developing, you shouldn't wash it with water?

Thanks!

Because washing it destroy the "bloom," that protects the egg. It's a barrier that is wet when an egg is first laid and dries very quickly to protects the egg from bacteria working it's way inside the cell. The bacteria we are talking about that can work it's way inside the egg is mcroscopic, which is why it can work it's way through an egg shell while water cannot.

This is also why you should not wash your egg after gathering. Wash them right before you use them and only dust or sand them off slightly before storing. While refrigeration will slow down the process of bacteria entering an egg it will not stop it. I hope that helps!

As far as floating an egg there is no harm in it. It's a common pratice farmers have used for ages. Check out the children's book, Gemma and the Chick, there is a darling story about a young girl on a farm who's mother floats the eggs that don't hatch and find one viable egg in the bunch to incubate. It's a darling story and I highly recommend it.

Take care, Lara

 

[DomiHentrix]

Sorry, I don't mean to sound cruel, just practical. There's a wide range of attitudes towards chickens here, from pure livestock to pure pets, and all places inbetween. Personally, although I care a lot about and for my chickens, I don't have time/energy/resources to coddle abandoned eggs to see if they hatch. Unless I were raising rare heritage breeds or California condors, I couldn't justify it. Instead, I'll trust Mother Nature & Mama hen.

Sometimes chicks don't hatch on time on their own because there is some genetic weakness. Sometimes it's just bad luck. IF a person is willing, there's always a chance the eggs will hatch a bit later. There's a chance the chick will be fine. If they don't hatch, it's probably NOT a good idea to try to help them pip. If they cannot do even that much on their own, they probably don't have the strength for a healthy life.

I applaud anyone's effort to give it a try, really I do. But I also wanted to give the flip side. That I don't think it's wrong to just let the eggs grow cold and bury them. The chick might already be dead even before that. Sometimes I've cracked abandoned eggs open to find beautiful fully-developed but dead chicks who for whatever reason never hatched. Sometimes it's filled with smelly goo. Either way it's not a pleasant sight, so I usually just bury them whole long after they've gone cold.

And I wanted to say that if you get those abandoned eggs to hatch, there IS a chance the Mama hen won't take them back. Yes, I've tried with my hens, of course by dark of night the way you're supposed to. The hens would tuck the new chicks under them for the night, but by morning would push them away and peck them every time they tried to come near. The sad cheepings of these rejected chicks was heartbreaking, I had to remove them from the pen. Then I'd be stuck with the chore of keeping a separate pen of orphaned chicks, or if there were only one, having to go buy 1 or 2 more chicks from the feed store to keep it company.

It's not that difficult to raise newborn baby chicks, it's just the addition to the chicken chores, the additional cage, food & water dishes to fill, the vulnerable chicks to protect & tend, the poop to clean, etc. You know. If you've got a small flock, or many willing hands to help with the chicken chores it's not a big deal. But these days I need to keep my operation as streamlined as possible, and so I wouldn't take on the extra chore of adopting abandoned eggs.

DomiHentrix, I wish you & your flock all the very best, whatever you decide to do. Please keep us posted as to your results, I pray for a happy outcome.

No worries I completely understand. I have had to put down chicks before and it is what it is. If a chick isn't viable enough to hatch out, better while it is in the egg than three weeks after it hatches IMO.

I'll let ya'll know how it goes and thanks for all of the advice!

Warmly, Lara​

 

[dancingbear]

One of my hens just hatched a bunch of washed eggs. I washed them because eggs had gotten broken in the nest, (hens fighting over who gets the eggs) they were covered with goo. So they were washed in a sink full of soapy water, scrubbed off with a green dish scrubby, rinsed in bleach water, and set under the hen. I washed all but 3, and marked the unwashed ones. She had 11 eggs, 8 hatched. Of the 3 that did not hatch, 2 were unwashed. Before incubation, there is nothing breathing in that egg. It won't suffocate. (See all the threads about shipping in bubble wrap, the eggs hatch fine, if they're really fertile and not otherwise too shaken up by shipping. Some get near 100% hatches, from eggs shipped in bubble wrap.)

Commercial hatcheries wash/sanitize the eggs before they set them. They can't risk bacterial contamination of the huge incubators, and losing all the eggs in a hatch, from a dirty shell. If washing kept them from hatching, they wouldn't do it.

I think the whole "don't wash hatching eggs!" thing is a myth. I've washed plenty and had them hatch fine. As I said, the water just has to be warmer than the eggs.

I think scraping an egg to clean it, has more potential to damage the shell than washing does. That "bloom" that everybody worries about is over-rated. People say "don't handle the hatching eggs, the bloom will rub off!" What the heck do they think happens under a hen? Do they think she avoids touching the eggs with her bare underside (where she's pulled out her feathers) so she doesn't rub off the bloom? It's probably all rubbed off within the first 24 hours, if it's that delicate.

I'm not saying it's better to wash the eggs, unless they're really dirty or covered with egg goo, like mine were, I'm just saying I don't think it really matters. I think there's a chance that washing dirty eggs may improve hatch rate, because of a reduced risk of bacterial contamination.

People get all kinds of notions, and some get passed down through generations as if they were set in stone. Some of these old beliefs are true, but some are just nonsense.

I encourage people to do a little home experimentation (with inexpensive eggs, of course!) to determine what's true and what's rubbish. That what I do.

Try the shell experiments with eating eggs. Really. It's easy. It's free! It's educational, and you'll be surprised at what you find out. Put food coloring in the water you float the empty shells in. See if it soaks through. Make sure you don't splash water into the shell half, just place it gently.

 

[DomiHentrix]

Quote:
I doubt it's a myth considering Gail Damerow & others note these things in their highly published books. They also say if you are going to wash them and destroy the bloom to use a 1% bleach solution so that you kill the bacteria as well. I am thinking that the bleach you use in your wash is the hot tip here! If I were going for a large hatch and had dirty eggs I would take the risk of the bleach solution. I only have a small coop and my eggs don't get that dirty, but if they were I could see making that choice.

I completely understand your position based on experience. We all have to take that into account in our individual situations and experiences. In the end I say--whatever works!!