I made a mistake..

[SoutheastAK_chickens]

I took another broody hens egg because she had to far apart hatch date for her babies. So I gave the egg to our other broody hen to let her hatch who is sitting on another egg that is marked since she collects everyday from everyone else. The egg unmarked is probably 17 days along and well I forgot. I collected the egg and washed it and immidietly realized oh shit is this the baby that was supposed to hatch soon!? Candled it and yup it was infact a baby in there. I didnt see if it was moving but does it have a chance to survive? This all happened within ten minutes so it didnt sit anywhere but I did wash it in Luke warm water. As soon as I realized I ran it back down and put it back under the broody hen. Did i just kill it?

 

[C Siena]

Not sure but you have nothing to lose by putting the egg back to stay warm. Good that it was warmish water and not cold, and that it was not away for that long from the hen.

Watch to make sure the hen does not move the egg from the nest. If so, do you have an incubator?

Don't beat yourself up, it happens, we make mistakes. Quick thinking to return the egg.

 

[SoutheastAK_chickens]

Not sure but you have nothing to lose by putting the egg back to stay warm. Good that it was warmish water and not cold, and that it was not away for that long from the hen.

Watch to make sure the hen does not move the egg from the nest. If so, do you have an incubator?

Don't beat yourself up, it happens, we make mistakes. Quick thinking to return the egg.

Definitely face palming i had just put it under her last night too and no I dont have an incubator just an abundant amount of broody hens

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Did you mark it in any way so you'll know when it hatches? If I was a betting person, I would bet that it will be fine. Does this broody have other chicks due to hatch around the same time?

 

[SnackMeat]

You can mark it but by about ten days in I have read most of the bloom is gone. And chicken's lay varying amount of blooms which is why some eggs have pink or purple appearances and some eggs feel just as chalky as any you might get from the store.

The bloom dries out as the egg dries out. I suppose a broody hen or a high humidity incubator could possibly make it last longer. But having had to cool off a lot of eggs when I had heat spikes while trying to dial in my diy incubator, you are fine barring jarring the veins.

 

[SoutheastAK_chickens]

Did you mark it in any way so you'll know when it hatches? If I was a betting person, I would bet that it will be fine. Does this broody have other chicks due to hatch around the same time?

She was sitting on a marked egg however both eggs are unknown on hatch date but to me they look to be hatching around the same time like on the verge of internal pip for both

 

[Ridgerunner]

She was sitting on a marked egg however both eggs are unknown on hatch date but to me they look to be hatching around the same time like on the verge of internal pip for both

You have nothing to lose by giving it a chance.

You can mark it but by about ten days in I have read most of the bloom is gone. And chicken's lay varying amount of blooms which is why some eggs have pink or purple appearances and some eggs feel just as chalky as any you might get from the store.

The bloom dries out as the egg dries out. I suppose a broody hen or a high humidity incubator could possibly make it last longer. But having had to cool off a lot of eggs when I had heat spikes while trying to dial in my diy incubator, you are fine barring jarring the veins.

Do you have a link to any of this so I can read it in context. It doesn't make any sense but maybe if I can read it in context it will help me understand what they are trying to say.

When a hen lays an egg it is covered in a liquid we call loom. That liquid quickly dries to form a layer that is very good at keeping bacteria out of the egg. It does not stay wet, it dries to form that barrier. It does not dry out and go away.

Unless something compromises the bloom, it can last for months. Good Housekeeping did a study on that many years ago.

 

[SnackMeat]

I'll try and find it. It was something I read in passing about two months ago. I'll try to find it today but feel free to remind me if I haven't posted it in a couple of days.

If it helps, I believe it had to do with egg porosity and humidity/oxygen exchange. The egg becomes more porous and at a certain point that bloom is gone because the egg is pushing out (slowly) egg liquid that was suspending the developing fetus.

 

[SnackMeat]

You have nothing to lose by giving it a chance.


Do you have a link to any of this so I can read it in context. It doesn't make any sense but maybe if I can read it in context it will help me understand what they are trying to say.

When a hen lays an egg it is covered in a liquid we call loom. That liquid quickly dries to form a layer that is very good at keeping bacteria out of the egg. It does not stay wet, it dries to form that barrier. It does not dry out and go away.

Unless something compromises the bloom, it can last for months. Good Housekeeping did a study on that many years ago.

I think the Good Housekeeping thing you are mentioning (though please link) is probably referring to eggs kept in a cool dark place.

Incubation conditions are very different and the eggshells naturally become more porous. While eggshell thickness differs from chicken to chicken and even egg to egg, the egg-topsies I've done on fetuses that have died a long the way have shown me how much an eggshell changes from week to week in general.

When you wash eggs to eat, I'm sure you've had some eggs that are very easy to clean versus those that stay a slimeball and need more than a rinse and a wipe. That's an example of different bloom levels.


Here is the forum post with the discussion and a lot of links:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/is-it-a-myth-that-water-removes-an-eggs-bloom.1571754/

 

[Ridgerunner]

Thanks for that link, I appreciate it. I do not have a link to that Good Housekeeping study, a long time ago and not nearly as scientifically rigorous as your links.

That first study was the most interesting, the one that showed the difference in CND (Unwashed control, non-dipped) and CWD (water control, water dipped). All of the others involved washing the egg in a solution that removed a significant portion of the cuticle.

The Cuticle Opacity declined tremendously in quail eggs in the unwashed and washed samples in just 14 days, almost 50%. As was mentioned in that thread you linked it would have been nice to have chicken eggs instead of quail eggs. The definition I found for "Opacity" is basically transparency. There are certainly things going on with the cuticle during incubation in an incubator. I imagine there are things going on under a broody hen also.

I also found this to be very interesting. The way I read it the chemicals in the treatments have a chemical reaction with the cuticle material, removing a lot of it but creating a new coating that is even more impervious that the cuticle material. That's the first time I've read anything like that. I'd always assumed the reason the commercial operations that wash the eggs had such good results with bacteria was that they practice such clean practices, did not allow any bacteria in the premises. Sounds like there is more to it than that.

Quail eggshell cuticle embodies abundant glycoprotein and dense pigment (D'Alba et al., 2017), which may have an interaction with SH, AA, and CA in the dipping solution and then dissolve or/and denature to form a viscous less permeable substance that blocked the eggshell pores. The lowered egg weight loss may therefore be explained by restriction of water vapor diffusion through these blocked pores after dipping treatment.

Anyway, I do not read these to say "most of the bloom is gone in 10 days". There are changes going on but I did not see anything that proved it was less effective. If you look at Figure 2 The hatched chicks, the results were comparable to the other treatments and significantly better than one.