Incubator smells AWFUL!

[furbabymum]

I’ve never had a rotten egg in the incubator. That could change real soon since I’m starting some tonight. You never know. I do remember one under a broody when I as a kid. She had hidden a nest and that rotten egg broke during the hatch. What a mess. I was really glad that was outside and well away from the hen house.

What do I do? After each hatch I wash the incubator really well. I use bleach on the plastic stuff but just soap and water on the Styrofoam. Start with a clean incubator.

When I gather or otherwise handle the eggs, I have clean hands. No oil or grime. Try to keep the eggs clean.

When the hen lays an egg, she puts a layer called bloom on the outside. That’s what looks wet when it is first laid but soon dries. That bloom helps keep bacteria out of the egg. It’s not perfect but it does a real good job. I do not wash the eggs or scrape them with sandpaper or anything that will remove that bloom.

I only set clean eggs. I don’t worry about light stains, but any with much poop on them or any kind of grime, such as a broken egg, don’t go in the incubator.

Rotten eggs can and do happen. You’re dealing with nature and that is not always nice. But cleanliness, not disturbing the bloom, and setting only clean eggs can really help your odds.

I’ve never had a rotten egg in the incubator. That could change real soon since I’m starting some tonight. You never know. I do remember one under a broody when I as a kid. She had hidden a nest and that rotten egg broke during the hatch. What a mess. I was really glad that was outside and well away from the hen house.

What do I do? After each hatch I wash the incubator really well. I use bleach on the plastic stuff but just soap and water on the Styrofoam. Start with a clean incubator.

When I gather or otherwise handle the eggs, I have clean hands. No oil or grime. Try to keep the eggs clean.

When the hen lays an egg, she puts a layer called bloom on the outside. That’s what looks wet when it is first laid but soon dries. That bloom helps keep bacteria out of the egg. It’s not perfect but it does a real good job. I do not wash the eggs or scrape them with sandpaper or anything that will remove that bloom.

I only set clean eggs. I don’t worry about light stains, but any with much poop on them or any kind of grime, such as a broken egg, don’t go in the incubator.

Rotten eggs can and do happen. You’re dealing with nature and that is not always nice. But cleanliness, not disturbing the bloom, and setting only clean eggs can really help your odds.

I didn't wash the eggs, I started with a clean incubator and I rarely touched the eggs and then only with clean hands.
I guess I'm not sure how to describe it but it was the hatching that got gross. The hatching goo if you will. Then there was the lime green poops of the newly hatched chicks. I tried to keep the unhatched eggs away from the hatched chick and clean up the shells but they were just everywhere leaning on the unhatched eggs and gooing them up. I had a high hatch rate. Hatched 7 babies out in one night and it was just constant, one after the other hatching. So it was pretty gooey. It's that that I'm wondering about I guess. How do I keep that goo down?

 

[Fancychooklady]

I put paper towel or coffee filter paper under the eggs at lockdown . It catches most of the ' goobly ' bits and makes it easier to remove. I had a rotten egg in my last batch it was easy to identify, it was greyish and sweating. I also had one explode under a hen, phew she never smelt the same, talk about Pepe Le pew.

 

[furbabymum]

I put paper towel or coffee filter paper under the eggs at lockdown . It catches most of the ' goobly ' bits and makes it easier to remove. I had a rotten egg in my last batch it was easy to identify, it was greyish and sweating. I also had one explode under a hen, phew she never smelt the same, talk about Pepe Le pew.

Brilliant. You are brilliant! I did do the paper towel but I should/could put each egg in it's own coffee filter. It'd cup them and maybe contain it better. THANKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Fancychooklady]

Brilliant. You are brilliant! I did do the paper towel but I should/could put each egg in it's own coffee filter. It'd cup them and maybe contain it better. THANKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Glad I could help. Even those big muffin papers might work, but the coffee filters are more absorbent.

 

[LTygress]

You can do all of the sterilization you want with the eggs, but it's still possible to get bacteria inside of it. The bacteria in your case PROBABLY entered the egg before you got it from the hen's nest and brought it in for hatching. It could have come from her body itself. It could have come from almost anything. And short of bleaching absolutely everything that the egg may come into contact with (including the hen's own vent), there's no way you can stop bacteria from touching the egg. It's impossible.

Think of this: When you go to the bathroom at a public place and wash your hands, then you touch the faucet to turn it off, you just picked up all kinds of bacteria from the faucet handle. If not there, how about the paper towel dispenser? How about the door itself when you go to leave that bathroom? Or maybe a shopping cart. And one of my favorites - the products in the store that you are there to buy. Some one had to touch them to put them on the shelf. Others may have touched it to look at it, and put it back on the shelf. The cashier still has to touch it too. And don't forget the people who buy things and return them (yes, even food items). For that you can add the person working the customer service desk, the person who bought the item, and the person who put it back on the shelf.

And any one of these people could have "forgotten" to wash their own hands after using the bathroom. By the time you leave the store, your hands are probably dirtier than they would be if you simply went in, used the restroom, didn't wash your hands, and went straight home. But we don't get sick most times, because our immune system "knows" the various germs out there, and deals with them on it's own.

The same thing applies to eggs. Something will touch something, that has touched something, and the egg only needs to come into contact with one non-sterile surface to pick up those bacteria. But just like we have immune systems, the egg has it's own system to ward against infections. Two membranes inside, plus the shell, plus the pH levels of the inside, not to mention a DEVELOPING immune system as the chick grows and develops.

A rotten egg "happens" when one of those defense systems does not work properly against the bacteria. It could be anything from a tiny hole in one of the membranes to a hairline crack in the shell, to the hen's body "wrapping" bad bacteria up inside the egg as it is created. So instead of keeping the bacteria OUT of the egg, it gets inside, and the bacteria is "incubated" just like an embryo would be. So they reproduce, grow, and develop quicker than they would at other temperatures, until the pressure is too much and the egg must explode.

The good news is, this does not happen very often at all in comparison to the number of eggs you can successfully incubate. In two years of straight incubation with only a one month break out of all of it, I've had only 3 rotten eggs. And the better news is, if you catch that smell when it first starts, the pressure usually hasn't built up anywhere near the point of exploding.

IF IT HAPPENS, not all eggs in the incubator will go bad. Actually, many of them won't, because they were obviously able to avoid the bacteria to begin with. But you need to clean the mess off of the other eggs with baby wipes, and clean up the mess in the incubator itself. Then candle the eggs every other day for about a week. Any that die, toss them immediately. If they all still show blood vessels and/or movement, keep them in until they hatch. Once they have all hatched and have been moved to the brooder, put the incubator in the dishwasher with a good bleach-based detergent, and make sure the dishwasher is set to a "high temperature wash" if it has that option (they all do it by default, but some have the option anyway so you can turn it OFF if you want).

 

[furbabymum]

You can do all of the sterilization you want with the eggs, but it's still possible to get bacteria inside of it. The bacteria in your case PROBABLY entered the egg before you got it from the hen's nest and brought it in for hatching. It could have come from her body itself. It could have come from almost anything. And short of bleaching absolutely everything that the egg may come into contact with (including the hen's own vent), there's no way you can stop bacteria from touching the egg. It's impossible.

Think of this: When you go to the bathroom at a public place and wash your hands, then you touch the faucet to turn it off, you just picked up all kinds of bacteria from the faucet handle. If not there, how about the paper towel dispenser? How about the door itself when you go to leave that bathroom? Or maybe a shopping cart. And one of my favorites - the products in the store that you are there to buy. Some one had to touch them to put them on the shelf. Others may have touched it to look at it, and put it back on the shelf. The cashier still has to touch it too. And don't forget the people who buy things and return them (yes, even food items). For that you can add the person working the customer service desk, the person who bought the item, and the person who put it back on the shelf.

And any one of these people could have "forgotten" to wash their own hands after using the bathroom. By the time you leave the store, your hands are probably dirtier than they would be if you simply went in, used the restroom, didn't wash your hands, and went straight home. But we don't get sick most times, because our immune system "knows" the various germs out there, and deals with them on it's own.

The same thing applies to eggs. Something will touch something, that has touched something, and the egg only needs to come into contact with one non-sterile surface to pick up those bacteria. But just like we have immune systems, the egg has it's own system to ward against infections. Two membranes inside, plus the shell, plus the pH levels of the inside, not to mention a DEVELOPING immune system as the chick grows and develops.

A rotten egg "happens" when one of those defense systems does not work properly against the bacteria. It could be anything from a tiny hole in one of the membranes to a hairline crack in the shell, to the hen's body "wrapping" bad bacteria up inside the egg as it is created. So instead of keeping the bacteria OUT of the egg, it gets inside, and the bacteria is "incubated" just like an embryo would be. So they reproduce, grow, and develop quicker than they would at other temperatures, until the pressure is too much and the egg must explode.

The good news is, this does not happen very often at all in comparison to the number of eggs you can successfully incubate. In two years of straight incubation with only a one month break out of all of it, I've had only 3 rotten eggs. And the better news is, if you catch that smell when it first starts, the pressure usually hasn't built up anywhere near the point of exploding.

IF IT HAPPENS, not all eggs in the incubator will go bad. Actually, many of them won't, because they were obviously able to avoid the bacteria to begin with. But you need to clean the mess off of the other eggs with baby wipes, and clean up the mess in the incubator itself. Then candle the eggs every other day for about a week. Any that die, toss them immediately. If they all still show blood vessels and/or movement, keep them in until they hatch. Once they have all hatched and have been moved to the brooder, put the incubator in the dishwasher with a good bleach-based detergent, and make sure the dishwasher is set to a "high temperature wash" if it has that option (they all do it by default, but some have the option anyway so you can turn it OFF if you want).

Well thanks to you I'm afraid to go shopping. LOL

Well, I had 2 rotten in there so obviously I did something wrong at one point. Well one was rotten and cracking and one chick and pipped and then got infected and died before hatching. At some point I did something bad and got it all gross in there. So I just tossed the 6 remaining eggs I had. Most hatched though.

I was kind of wondering if the bacteria could cause bad growth in the chicks. I have had 2 chicks with spraddle leg and one chick looks totally normal but doesn't seem to be moving about normally.

 

[Fancychooklady]

Well thanks to you I'm afraid to go shopping. LOL

Well, I had 2 rotten in there so obviously I did something wrong at one point. Well one was rotten and cracking and one chick and pipped and then got infected and died before hatching. At some point I did something bad and got it all gross in there. So I just tossed the 6 remaining eggs I had. Most hatched though.

I was kind of wondering if the bacteria could cause bad growth in the chicks. I have had 2 chicks with spraddle leg and one chick looks totally normal but doesn't seem to be moving about normally.

The health issues are more likely to be humidity related that were caused during incubation. Tape the spraddled legs and give the poorly one some save a chick.
I put my incubator in the bath , rinse it and soak with bleach overnight. Use a scrubbing brush to get into every nook and cranny.

 

[Ridgerunner]

You might look through this for possible causes. Unfortunately the cause of an effect is not always straight-forward. Remember this is geared more toward the commercial guys. They are going to do things you don’t like fumigation.

http://urbanext.illinois.edu/eggs/res24-18.html

 

[furbabymum]

The health issues are more likely to be humidity related that were caused during incubation. Tape the spraddled legs and give the poorly one some save a chick.
I put my incubator in the bath , rinse it and soak with bleach overnight. Use a scrubbing brush to get into every nook and cranny.

Thank you!

 

[Henpeckedpirate]

Only on my first hatch but thought I'd put my 2cents in. So obviously I'm gonna be slightly more warey and fidgity being my first. But day 5 and yesterday something didn't smell right.. Only a slight smell so put it down as normal and a "let's see what happens". Today it was definitely there and definitely the incubator, so went for the sniff test. All smelled fresh, but one, which didn't stink, but one sniff close to the nose and it was definitely.. different. Didn't leave it to chance, took it out, a quick candle and something was going on.. but had some hairline cracks and didn't feel right. So opened it up (over the toilet ready to flush!) and yeah...smelly. Not knock you out smelly, but going that way. There was a stain on the inside of the egg where it looked like it had been wiped off outside. Think I made the right choice before it got worse and maybe blew. No smell now. Hoping no more! Hope you're all well X