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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.
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.