Incubation Experiment on Fertility Length of Stored Eggs

Day 21. All 23 eggs from the 25 days of collecting an egg a day are still viable. One is even starting to roll around today. It amazes me that I was able to keep these eggs on my kitchen counter for up to 25 days and still have so much success. :celebrateNext update will be in about 7 days. Let's see how successful the actual hatch will be! :ya:highfive::wee
 
Day 21. All 23 eggs from the 25 days of collecting an egg a day are still viable. One is even starting to roll around today. It amazes me that I was able to keep these eggs on my kitchen counter for up to 25 days and still have so much success. :celebrateNext update will be in about 7 days. Let's see how successful the actual hatch will be! :ya:highfive::wee
@Jpat did you see this?
 
Final Results:

25 eggs were collected daily over 25 days. Eggs were stored small end down in egg cartons on my kitchen counter with daytime temp of 70° and nighttime temp of 65°. Eggs were not turned during storage.

Nonfertile Eggs: 1
Early Fail Eggs (day 7-10): 1
Fully Developed but Unpipped: 3
Magical Disappearing Egg: 1
Failure to Thrive after Hatch: 1
Hernias: 1 (unassisted late hatch)
Birth Defects: 0
Breach (Wrong End Pip): 1

Successful and Thriving Hatches: 18

Besides testing for fertility of older eggs, I also chose not to turn the eggs during storage, and turned only twice a day during incubation at 6 am and 6 pm. I also forget to turn the eggs 3-5 times during the incubation. The eggs were allowed to hatch completely unassisted.

Statistically, this hatch was consistent with (if not better than) my 3 previous hatches of eggs from the same 2 ducks that were stored no longer than 7-10 days and turned 3 times per day during storage and incubation.

So, my conclusion is that the eggs can be stored for at least 3 weeks without loss of fertility or reduction in quality, that they do not need to be turned during storage if stored in cartons, and that turning twice a day is quite sufficient.

This was my last hatch for the season, so the next experiments will have to wait. ;)

Next experiments:

1. 35 days of room-temperature stored eggs, each marked by date collected.

2. 35 days of refrigerated eggs, each marked by date collected.

3. 10 days of room-temperature stored eggs turned only once a day.

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