How do you store....???

[sniper338]

How do you store your hatching eggs to save them up a few days in order to put em all in the bator at one time?

I know they gotta stay cooler.... but... how exactly are you doing it.... the refrigerator seems too cold....

 

[sourland]

Way back before anyone told me any different, I stored eggs in an earthen basement - temps around 65/70 F and humidity 50 % plus. Stored in trays filled with wood chips, turned daily, stored for up to 21 days + and had great % hatches. The 21 day + allowed me to clean and disinfect the only incubator that I had. I still feel that stored properly, non shipped eggs, can remain viable far beyond presently recommended holding periods.

 

[sniper338]

Way back before anyone told me any different, I stored eggs in an earthen basement - temps around 65/70 F and humidity 50 % plus.  Stored in trays filled with wood chips, turned daily, stored for up to 21 days + and had great % hatches.  The 21 day + allowed me to clean and disinfect the only incubator that I had.  I still feel that stored properly, non shipped eggs, can remain viable far beyond presently recommended holding periods. 

So...... what did you do different now?

 

[sourland]

It's been a long time since I have done any incubating, but I would simply try to duplicate those conditions. My cellar (no longer earthen) stays at around 65 F during the summer with a humidity 60% or better unless I run the dehumidifiers. I would probably replace the pine shavings/wood chips with ground corn cob, turn daily, and hold eggs long enough to have my desired 'clutch'. Shipped eggs are an entirely different story.

 

[sniper338]

Ok

 

[Egghead_Jr]

I keep mine right on the counter in dinning room. The warmest my house gets in winter is 66F. I store them in egg cartons fat side up and turn twice a day. Tilt with a block under one side then the other. I've good hatch rate and store up to two weeks.

 

[sniper338]

Sounds easy enough!

 

[sniper338]

I'm trying it out and we will see how it works out... I put the eggs I am storing to hatch in the incubator on the egg turner so they get turned automatically, put a little water in there to keep a little humidity.... then just leaving the incubator off and in a cooler dark room. temp is staying in the 60's in there far as I can tell.... see how it works... only thing I am worried about it any kind of bacteria starting up... but we will see. the eggs didnt sit in the cages for more than a hour at most before I got them out. They were really clean... hopefully the birds settle down and I can get more eggs today. They are all laying in the evening..

 

[Ridgerunner]

Something to remember about these recommendations is that they are guidelines, not necessarily harsh rigid laws of nature. Their intent is to help improve your odds of getting a good hatch. There are no guarantees that you will get a great hatch if you follow them nor any guarantees of total failure if you violate one a bit. There is usually a pretty wide tolerance between the ideal perfect condition and the conditions that will still give you pretty darn good results. Just do the best you can and don’t obsess over it. I assure you a hen laying an egg a day to make a clutch to incubate doesn’t worry about it and she will probably outperform any of us.

I keep mine in the automatic egg turner in a spare bedroom on top of a dresser, out of direct sunlight and where the vent does not blow on them. They are out of the way in there and the temperatures are pretty stable. Another guideline not often mentioned is to try to not have a lot of temperature fluctuation. Temperature fluctuation is supposed to be hard on the embryo in the egg, but I’ve never seen a hen laying eggs to eventually hatch worry about that.

A lot of these guidelines come from the commercial hatching industry where they might hatch 1,000,000 chicks a week every week of the year. A very small change in the hatching percent can make a big difference with that many eggs at stake. A 1% change means 10,000 chicks a week or ever a half million chicks a year. I’m just using 1% because it makes the math easy. The further you are away from the guidelines and the longer you are away from them, the more effect it might have, but as I said for a lot of these things the effect is pretty minor. I’ll never notice the difference with as few eggs as I hatch a year. So don’t totally ignore the guidelines, just do the best you reasonably can and you should do OK.