how to clean up goose eggs

[cgjsmith]

Hi all The goose I thought had moved her eggs (and spent days trying to find the new nest) didn't she just started buring her eggs deep in the hey. So now I've got a bunch of dirty eggs. I know you can't wash eggs you want to incubate but can I clean them up a little bit? Crystal

 

[MissPrissy]

I had a batch of goose eggs that came very dirty. After a lot of reading and a lot of help from people on this forum it was recommended that the eggs be disinfected. I used the reccomendations from a clorox PDF file (I'll come back with a link) and I washed and disinfected the eggs carefully. I put 12 in the incubator. Candling after 10 days a few did show a bacteria growing inside which means something from the outside did pass to the inside. Not a good thing.

I got fresh eggs from cockadoodlemom and her eggs were spotlessly clean. I did not clean them nor did I disinfect them. 3 of 5 are gowing well and there was never any sign of bacterial problems with them (2 were clear).

If you do get bacteria growing in your eggs in the incubator you need to disinfect your incubator very well because it can spread to other eggs at another time.

Good luck with your eggs! I have goose eggs due to hatch near the end of this coming week!

 

[MissPrissy]

The pdf file link is in this thread toward the end. There is some very good information to be gleaned from reading it.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=35454&p=1

 

[Professional]

I know you can't wash eggs you want to incubate but can I clean them up a little bit?

That old chestnut has been around forever, and still gets a lot of press, but it's just plain not true. You can indeed clean eggs before incubating, in fact, with waterfowl especially, it often improves hatches, especially with geese. If you read Dave Holderread's duck book, who many worship as the be-all and end-all in waterfowl, you'll read a story about how he took a clutch of mallard eggs from the wild, after finding them submerged in water after a spring flood. Most of them hatched.​

 

[deeszoo]

Yes, wash them and get them as clean as possible to get the bacteria laden poo off of them.

DeAnna