how many exact days will an egg stay fertile once freshly laid?

[MrViskers]

i have collected over 5 eggs over the past 4 days from my Araucana pair and they have been sitting in a makeshift nest from tissues (room temp) i ordered an incubator online and i wont receive it for another week and a half so will the sperm in the egg stay fertile until i get the incubator?

 

[Rachel'sFlock]

if by fertile, you mean viable, I have heard (and that is all- I read a lot, but this is my first go with hatching eggs) that fertile eggs will remain viable for several days if kept point down at around 70 degrees. I used eggs between 3 days and still-warm from being layed for the clutch we have under a broody.
The eggs have to be fertilized before they are laid.
Hope that helps.
Bright Blessings!

 

[groundpecker]

I have hatched eggs up to 16? days old. After day 10 the fertility greatly decreases by %5 or more per day. I would suggest you use fresh eggs for your bator, because your hens should lay more.

 

[kidcody]

I've hatched eggs that I've kept in the frig that were over 3 months old (didn't have the heart to throw them out) put them in the bator all but two hatched! Fertile eggs can last along time if the conditions are just right! Your eggs will be fine!

 

[silky_3699]

after 4 days fertility goes down.

 

[pete55]

The egg will remain viable for at least a couple of weeks but hatachability and vigour of the embryo decreases after about 10 days. Keep eggs cool and turn once daily whilst being stored.

Pete

 

[Gypsy07]

I've had good hatches from eggs over 21 days old. A lot of it is down to correct and careful storage, as well as the age, health and nutrition of the parent birds. Anyway, as long as you've got room for them all in your new bator, what have you got to lose by setting them anyway and seeing how they get on? I mean, they won't all automatically go rotten if they're too old to develop - I've been incubating old and dodgy eggs for ages now and I've never had one go rotten. Most likely the worst that would happen would be that you'd get more non-developers than you'd normally get incubating fresh eggs.

I'd say, keep ALL of the eggs. Write the date on each egg as you collect it, then when you're ready to set them, if they won't all fit in your bator, then put them in in reverse order, i.e. the freshest first and then work backwards, so that the ones being left out are the oldest ones. Does that make sense?

What kind of bator have you ordered anyway? If it's one of those styrofoam ones that takes 40 eggs, you'll be able to set all of yours and still have room to spare!