Incubating Eggs before Shipping

[call ducks]

I have read about this, in fact i learned about by reading on of whitehouse's (the guy that makes chick chart i think it's called) auctions on quail eggs...

 

[Rozzie]

I'd think that you'd want to introduce one new variable at a time. Thus start with eggs that have NOT been through the post office.

You might do a dozen control eggs, a dozen that have been incubated 3 days but then have sat at room temp (72sh) and a dozen each that have been stored warmer (85, maybe) and a dozen at cooler temps (60, maybe). This would help simulate temperature variables that can be encountered during shipping.

Of course, during shipping the eggs could go from 50 degrees to 120 degrees depending on what the post office does with the, but this is too much to examine in an initial experiment.

Then, if you did continue the experiment (after showing a few times that the eggs were viable without the shipping aspect) you could add that part in...

 

[deerman]

I first read this, and said no way...but thinking I had power outage and still some hatched...so maybe.

Look like it wouldn't be good shaking them about after incubation. Be nice to see what happens.

 

[cackleberrycoop]

Quote:
Even better to do this while the in-laws are visiting for the Holidays - really make 'em think you've gone off the deep end.

I had a chick hatch nearly five days ahead of any of the other eggs once, on day 17, and couldn't figure out how that was possible. When I puzzled it over with the lady who gave me the eggs, she admitted to having snatched a few from under a broody hen. All the eggs had sat out on her counter for a full 24hrs, then taken a car drive to my house two hours away and sat on my counter for a half day. That experience had me wondering for a long time if something like this was possible, if that chick had been a few days developed in the egg before I set it in the bator.

 

[mandelyn]

If you didn't have a set-aside control group, you wouldn't know if it was the post office that caused them not to hatch, or the method itself. Let's say we're going to ship in the month of April, and it's not a far enough distance for an airplane. Remove the variables of bad weather and cargo holds. (Does USPS even use airplanes for say Cali to NY? Or would it be a semi trailer and all the varying temps across the US?)

These are all the ways it would have to tried with control groups. Buuuut... here's the kicker... they need to be all the same eggs. For the sake of science, to remove as many unknowns as possible.

12 eggs to go as normal, the control group. They will be started when the 3 day incubated eggs are re-set, for the same hatch date. In theory.

36 eggs go in for a 3 day set. 12 of them are removed and placed at room temperature. 12 more are placed in a "warm" fridge to be around 45 degrees. The last 12 are placed into a shipping box, wrapped as normal. Room temp, that night put into the 45 degree fridge. Remove in the morning. Throw it across the room onto the couch. Simulate shipping! Warm and toss it, cool and slide it, warm and drop a book on it, cool it and throw it again. Don't beat it up, pretend you read the fragile sticker and throw it gently.

Re-set the 36 eggs and the 12 control eggs. Proceed as normal. After what, 4 days of "shipping"?

So to do it right, we would need 48 eggs from the same source. If the data is inconclusive, then we need to do it on a larger scale, with an egg chain so to speak, each person offering 36 eggs, keeping 12 for themselves to start and stop as a control group, and the rest go to two different places so that it's two groups of 12.

 

[cackleberrycoop]

Quote:
Count me in!

 

[mandelyn]

Really... we would need a controlled incubation process too, like someone with a really reliable cabinet style incubator and all the eggs get shipped there from various locations.

 

[Chic-n-farmer]

Of course....... come springtime we will have all forgotten this...

or maybe I'm the only forgetful one.

 

[kathyinmo]

hahaha .... that's why I said to remind me!

I do have a cabinet incubator (Sportsman), but I do not want the added chicks, as I have several of my own I need to hatch in the spring. Why would we need a cabinet bator? For this experiment, aren't we trying to see if it would be of any benefit, and most people we send eggs to do not have cabinet models.

 

[muddyhorse]

I would be willing to give this a try