SnackMeat
Songster
- Jun 14, 2025
- 323
- 387
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I know! That first study had my brain really turning about possible changes I want to make (with less "valuable" eggs as what I have at the end of the season isn't ones I want to gamble with like in the beginning of incubating season.)
It was amazing that an acidic treatment could make such a difference, but it also made me wonder about other variables related to sterile (or more close to sterile) environments like labs. For example, distilled or spring water or is tap okay? Should we clean the incubator once or twice in the three weeks?
Either way, info that is worth playing with.
As far as my earlier tentative claim of ten days, it's hard to find exactly (as you mentioned yourself with the good housekeeping article) something read months ago. But I will possibly poke around later. Anecdotal evidence isn't proof, but I over handle my incubation eggs (less so now, but I was handling multiple times a day when trying to find tube my DIY incubator a couple months ago.) My eggs got rinsed multiple times dealing with heat spikes (day 15 onward especially.)
A lot of people get scared that rinsing their eggs or lightly rubbing some poop or dirt off is going to open the egg up to bacterial infection, and there are a lot of variables-- calcium, porosity, did the bloom dry correctly without straw or poop getting in before it dried, stuff like that.
All I can say is that while I can't draw any firm conclusions (because a fetus can die from some bacteria/virus/fungus making it's way in through the shell and killing it, but not be obvious to candling or breaking the egg open unless one is going to use a microscope to look for that stuff)
1. Some eggs have a thick bloom. Some barely have any. (This is from washing eggs for eating as well as rinsing eggs sometimes for incubating. I don't even rinse incubating eggs that often.)
2. The bacterial infected eggs I've had, maybe 4 this year out of 200-250 or so (turn black from close to eggshell and working inward) either came from something obvious like a crack, or the egg was completely clean looking.
3. The feel of the eggs changes week to week. And breaking the eggshell gets easier for looking at dead fetus to check development. I'm not saying some don't have a bloom on them, but some have a really thick obvious one that becomes slimy or slightly slippery when wet and other eggs either feel more smooth or porous. And then by the end of incubation, most eggshells feel pretty crispy crunchy and easy to chip away or break a piece in one's hand. Dry incubation and humid incubation (as well as the variables of each chicken's eggshell output and diet) obviously affect this.
Anyway, long story long-- OP should worry at all about rinsing an egg. The things that I worried about the most when I first started incubating, like the intact bloom and shrink wrapping, based on what I was reading others saying proved to be largely overblown. Are they variables? Sure. But not nearly to the extent as most of the online chatter makes it out to be.
I would have to look into the oxygen/humidity exchange in eggshells, but eggs should lose something like 2.8% a week in weight. If there is porousness allowing liquid to evaporate out, then the bloom, while helpful, isn't keeping a sterile environment if oxygen can get inside the eggshell.
It was amazing that an acidic treatment could make such a difference, but it also made me wonder about other variables related to sterile (or more close to sterile) environments like labs. For example, distilled or spring water or is tap okay? Should we clean the incubator once or twice in the three weeks?
Either way, info that is worth playing with.
As far as my earlier tentative claim of ten days, it's hard to find exactly (as you mentioned yourself with the good housekeeping article) something read months ago. But I will possibly poke around later. Anecdotal evidence isn't proof, but I over handle my incubation eggs (less so now, but I was handling multiple times a day when trying to find tube my DIY incubator a couple months ago.) My eggs got rinsed multiple times dealing with heat spikes (day 15 onward especially.)
A lot of people get scared that rinsing their eggs or lightly rubbing some poop or dirt off is going to open the egg up to bacterial infection, and there are a lot of variables-- calcium, porosity, did the bloom dry correctly without straw or poop getting in before it dried, stuff like that.
All I can say is that while I can't draw any firm conclusions (because a fetus can die from some bacteria/virus/fungus making it's way in through the shell and killing it, but not be obvious to candling or breaking the egg open unless one is going to use a microscope to look for that stuff)
1. Some eggs have a thick bloom. Some barely have any. (This is from washing eggs for eating as well as rinsing eggs sometimes for incubating. I don't even rinse incubating eggs that often.)
2. The bacterial infected eggs I've had, maybe 4 this year out of 200-250 or so (turn black from close to eggshell and working inward) either came from something obvious like a crack, or the egg was completely clean looking.
3. The feel of the eggs changes week to week. And breaking the eggshell gets easier for looking at dead fetus to check development. I'm not saying some don't have a bloom on them, but some have a really thick obvious one that becomes slimy or slightly slippery when wet and other eggs either feel more smooth or porous. And then by the end of incubation, most eggshells feel pretty crispy crunchy and easy to chip away or break a piece in one's hand. Dry incubation and humid incubation (as well as the variables of each chicken's eggshell output and diet) obviously affect this.
Anyway, long story long-- OP should worry at all about rinsing an egg. The things that I worried about the most when I first started incubating, like the intact bloom and shrink wrapping, based on what I was reading others saying proved to be largely overblown. Are they variables? Sure. But not nearly to the extent as most of the online chatter makes it out to be.
I would have to look into the oxygen/humidity exchange in eggshells, but eggs should lose something like 2.8% a week in weight. If there is porousness allowing liquid to evaporate out, then the bloom, while helpful, isn't keeping a sterile environment if oxygen can get inside the eggshell.
